book I

have actually got, and shall give him an article.

There is one more passage, Sir, in your letter, which I cannot answer, without putting you to new trouble-a liberty which all your indulgence cannot justify me in taking; else I would beg to know on what authority you attribute to Laurence Earl of Rochester(927) the famous preface to his father's history, which I have always heard ascribed to Atterbury, Smallridge, and Aldridge. The knowledge of this would be an additional favour; it would be a much greater, Sir, if coming this way, you would ever let me have the honour of seeing a gentleman to whom I am so much obliged.

(920) The Rev. Henry Zouch was the elder brother of Dr. Thomas Zouch, better known in the literary world. Henry principally dedicated himself to the performance of his duties as a clergyman, a country gentleman and a magistrate; in all which characters he was highly exemplary. He published several works connected with these avocations, particularly on the management of prisons, and on other points of police. He had, also, earlier days, been a poet; and these letters show that he was well acquainted with the literary history and antiquities of his country. Having lived in close intimacy and friendship with Mr. Walpole's friend and correspondent, William Earl of Strafford, it is probable that through him he became interested in Mr. Walpole's pursuits, and disposed to contribute that assistance towards the perfection of the "Catalogue of Royal and Noble authors," which is so justly acknowledged by Mr. Walpole. Mr. Zouch died at the family seat of sandall, in Yorkshire, of which parish he was also vicar, in June, 1795; leaving his friend and kinsman, the Earl of lonsdale, his executor, by whose favour these letters are now given to the public. The exact time of his birth is not ascertained; but as he was an A. B. of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1746, he probably was born about 1725.-C. [Mr. Walpole's Letters to the Rev. Henry Zouch first appeared in the year 1805, edited by the Right Honourable John Wilson Croker; to whose notes the initial C. is affixed.]

(921) The "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors," originally published by Mr. Walpole in 1758. Mr. Zouch appears to have commenced the correspondence on the occasion of this publication. The author of the Catalogue received much of the same kind of assistance as was given to him by Mr. Zouch; but as editor, Mr. Park, says, "it would seem that Lord Orford was more thankful for communications tendered, than desirous to let the contents of them be seen."-C.

(922) It is probable that Mr. Zouch objected to Mr. Walpole's assertion, that the illumination prefixed to a manuscript in Lambeth library, of Earl Rivers's translation of "The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, by Jehan de Teonville," represented the Earl introducing Caxton to Edward IV. Mr. Zouch seems to have very properly doubted whether Caxton would wear the clerical habit, as the figure referred to in that illumination does; and Mr. Walpole replies to that doubt. Upon the same subject, Mr. Cole says, qu. how Lord Orford came to know the kneeling figure in a clerical habit, was Caxton the printer? He is certainly a priest, as is evident from his tonsure, but I do not think that Caxton was in orders. I should rather suppose that it was designed for Jehan de Teonville, provost of Paris."-C.

(923) Mr. Walpole did make this promised statement in the following note: "King Richard had long been dead; I suppose it is only meant that Lord Cobham disclaimed obedience to the house of Lancaster, who had usurped the throne of King Richard and his right heirs."-C.

(924) He was married on the 15th of January, 1477-8, in the fourth year of his age.-C.

(925) In a subsequent edition Mr. Walpole recites the title of this letter, "Epistola exhortatoria missa ad Nobilitatem ac Plebem universumque Populum Regni Scotiae," printed in 4to. at London, 1548; and he adds, this might possibly be composed by some dependant. We do not exactly see the grounds of Walpole's assertion, that the Lord Protector Somerset "could not write any thing like classic Latin;": although we admit that his having been chancellor of Cambridge is not conclusive evidence upon this subject; and that it is probable that the letter was written by his secretary.-C.

(926) "The Art of Metals, in which is declared the manner of their generation." Albara Alonzo Barba was curate of St. Bernard's in Potosi. This work, which contains a great deal of practical information on mining, has also been translated into German and French. The English editions are very scarce, and a republication might be desirable in this age of mining adventure.-C.

(927) Second son of the great Lord Clarendon. Mr. Walpole makes no mention of this preface, but Mr. Park seems to have entertained the same idea as Mr. Zouch, as he says, "His lordship merits honourable notice in the present work, as the conceived author of a preface to the first edition of his noble father's history, which abounds with dignified sentiment and filial reverence."-C.

439 Letter 276 To The Rev. Henry Zouch. Strawberry Hill, August 12, 1758.

Sir, It were a disrespect to your order, of which I hope you think me incapable, not to return an immediate answer to the favour of your last, the engaging modesty of which would raise my esteem if I had not felt it before for you. I certainly do not retract my desire of being better acquainted with you, Sir, from the knowledge you are pleased to give me of yourself. Your profession is an introduction any where; but, before I learned that, you will do me the justice to observe, that your good sense and learning were to me sufficient recommendation; and though, in the common intercourse of the world, rank and birth have their proper distinctions, there is certainly no occasion for them between men whose studies and inclinations are the same. Indeed, I know nothing that gives me any pretence to think any gentlemen my inferior. I am a very private person myself, and if I have any thing to boast from my birth, it is from the good understanding, not from the nobility of my father. I must beg, therefore, that, in the future correspondence, which I hope we shall have, you will neither show me, nor think I expect, a respect to which I have no manner of title, and which I wish not for, unless it would enable me to be of service to gentlemen of merit, like yourself. I will say no more on this head, but to repeat, that if any occasion should draw you to this part of England, (as I shall be sorry if it is ill health that has carried you from home,) I flatter myself you will let me have the satisfaction and, for the last time of using so formal a word, the honour of seeing you.

In the mean time, you will oblige me by letting me know how I can convey my Catalogue to you. I ought, I know, to stay till I can send you a more correct edition; but, though the first volume is far advanced, the second may profit by your remarks. If you could send me the passage and the page in Vardus, relating to the Earl of Totness, it would much oblige ne; for I have only the English edition; and as I am going a little journey for a week, cannot just now get the Latin.

You mention, Sir, Mr. Thoresby's museum: is it still preserved entire?

I would fain ask you another question, very foreign to any thing I have been saying, but from your searches into antiquity, you may possibly, Sir, be able to explain what nobody whom I have consulted hitherto can unravel. At the end of the second part of the p. 105, in the folio edition, is a letter from Henry VIII. to the Cardinal Cibo, dated from our palace, Mindas, 10th July, 1527. In no map, topographical account, or book of antiquity, can I possibly find such house or place as Mindas.(928)

(928) See this corrected as a typographical mistake, post, p. 455.-C.

440 Letter 277 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, Aug. 12, 1758.

It is not a thousand years since I wrote to you, is it?--nay, if it is, blame the King of Prussia, who has been firing away his time at Olmutz; blame Admiral Howe, who never said a word of having taken Cherbourg till yesterday.--Taken Cherbourg!-- yes, he has--he landed within six miles of it on the 6th, saw some force, who only stayed to run away; attacked a fort, a magazine blew up, the Guards marched against a body of French, who again made fools of them, pretending to stand, and then ran away--and then, and then, why, then we took Cherbourg. We pretended to destroy the works. and a basin that has just cost two millions. We have not lost twenty men. The City of London, I suppose, is drinking brave Admiral Howe's and brave Cherbourg's health; but I miss all these festivities by going into Warwickshire tomorrow to Lord Hertford. In short, Cherbourg comes very opportunely: we had begun to grow peevish at Louisbourg not being arrived, and there are some(929) people at least as peevish that Prince de Soubize has again walked into Hanover after having demolished the Hessians. Prince Ferdinand, who a fortnight ago was as great a hero as if he had been born in Thames Street, is kept in check by Monsieur de Contades, and there are some little apprehensions that our Blues, etc., will not be able to join him. Cherbourg will set all to rights; the King of Prussia may fumble as much as he pleases, and though the French should not be frightened out of their senses at the loss of this town, we shall be fully persuaded they are, and not a gallon less of punch will be drunk from Westminster to Wapping.

I have received your two letters of July 1st and 7th, with the prices of Stosch's medals, and the history of the new pontificate. I will not meddle with the former, content with and thanking you much for those you send me; and for the case of liqueurs, which I don't intend to present myself with, but to pay you for.

You must, I think, take up with this scrap of a letter; consider it contains a conquest. If I wrote any longer, before I could finish my letter, perhaps I should hear that our fleet was come back again, and, though I should be glad they were returned safely, it diminishes the lustre of a victory to have a tame conclusion to it-without that, you are left at liberty to indulge vision--Cherbourg is in France, Havre and St. Maloes may catch the panic, Calais my be surprised, that may be followed by a battle which we may gain; it is but a march of a few days to Paris, the King flies to his good allies the Dutch for safety, Prince Edward takes possession of the Bastile in his brother's name, to whom the King, content with England and Hanover--alas! I had forgot that he has just lost the latter.-Good night!

Sunday morning.

Mr. Conway, who is just come in to carry me away, brings an account of an important advantage gained by a detachment of six battalions of Hanoverians, who have demolished fourteen of the French, and thereby secured the magazines and a junction with the English.

(929) The King.

441 Letter 278 To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, Aug. 20, 1758.

After some silence, one might take the opportunity of Cherbourg(930) and Louisbourg(931) to revive a little correspondence with popular topics; but I think you are no violent politician, and I am full as little so; I will therefore tell you of what I of course care more, and I am willing to presume you do too; that is, myself. I have been journeying much since I heard from you; first to the Vine, where I was greatly pleased with the alterations; the garden is quite beautified and the house dignified. We went over to the Grange, that sweet house of my Lord Keeper's(932) that you saw too. The pictures are very good, and I was particularly pleased with the procession, which you were told was by Rubens, but is certainly Vandyke's sketch for part of that great work, that he was to have executed in the Banqueting-house. You did not tell me of a very fine Holbein, a woman, who was evidently some princess of the White Rose.

I am just now returned from Ragley, which has had a great deal done to it since I was there last. Browne(933) has improved both the ground and the water, though not quite to perfection. This is the case of the house: where there are no striking faults, but it wants a few Chute or Bentley touches. I have recommended some dignifying of the saloon with Seymours and Fitzroys, Henry the Eighths and Charles the Seconds. They will correspond well to the proudest situation imaginable. I have already dragged some ancestors out of the dust there, written their names on their portraits; besides which, I have found and brought up to have repaired an incomparable picture of Van Helmont by Sir Peter Lely.--But now for recoveries---think what I have in part recovered! Only the state papers, private letters, etc., etc., of the two Lords Conway,(934) secretaries of state. How you will rejoice and how you will grieve! They seem to have laid up every scrap of paper they ever had. from the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign to the middle of Charles the Second's. By the accounts of the family there were whole rooms full; all which, during the absence of the last and the minority of the present lord, were by the ignorance of a steward consigned to the oven and the uses of the house. What remained, except one box that was kept till almost rotten in a cupboard, were thrown loose into the lumber room; where, spread on the pavement, they supported old marbles and screens and boxes. From thence I have dragged all I could, and, have literally, taking all together, brought away a chest near five feet long, three wide, and two deep, brim full. Half are bills, another part rotten, another gnawed by rats; yet I have already found enough to repay my trouble and curiosity, not enough to satisfy it. I will only tell you of three letters of the great Strafford and three long ones of news of Mr. Gerrard, master of the Charter-house; all six written on paper edged with green, like modern French paper. There are handwritings of every body, all their seals perfect, and the ribands with which they tied their letters. The original proclamations of Charles the First, signed by the privy council; a letter to King James from his son-in-law of Bohemia, with his seal; and many, very many letters of negotiation from the Earl of Bristol in Spain, Sir Dudley Carleton, Lord Chichester, and Sir Thomas Roe.--What say you? will not here be food for the press?

I have picked up a little painted glass too, and have got a promise of some old statues, lately dug up, which formerly adorned the cathedral of Litchfield. You see I continue to labour in my vocation, of which I can give you a comical instance:--I remembered a rose in painted glass in a little village going to Ragley, which I remarked passing by five years ago; told Mr. Conway on which hand it would b, and found it in the very spot. I saw a very good and perfect tomb at Alcester of Sir Fulke Greville's father and mother, and a wretched old house with a very handsome gateway of stone at Colton, belonging to Sir Robert Throckmorton. There is nothing else tolerable but twenty-two coats of the matches of the family in painted glass.--You cannot imagine how astonished a Mr. Seward,(935) a learned clergyman, was, who came to Ragley while I was there. Strolling about the house, he saw me first sitting on the pavement of the lumber room with Louis, all over cobwebs and dust and mortar; then found me in his own room on a ladder writing on a picture; and half an hour afterwards lying on the grass in the court with the dogs and the children, in my slippers and without my hat. He had had some doubt whether I was the painter or the factotum of the family; but you would have died at his surprise when he saw me walk into dinner dressed and sit by Lady Hertford. Lord Lyttelton was there, and the conversation turned on literature: finding me not quite ignorant added to the parson's wonder; but he could not contain himself any longer, when after dinner he saw me go to romps and jumping with the two boys; he broke out to my Lady Hertford, and begged to know who and what sort of man I really was, for he had never met with any thing of the kind. Adieu!

(930) About the middle of this month General Blighe had landed with an army on the coast of France, near Cherbourg, destroyed the basin, harbour, and forts of that place, and re-embarked his troops without loss.

(931) Alluding to the surrender of Louisbourg and the whole island of Cape Breton on the coast of North America to General Amherst and Admiral Boscawen.

(932) Lord Keeper Henley, in 1761 made lord chancellor, and in 1764 created Lord Northington.-E.

(933) Capability Browne. See vol. ii. p. 112, letter 46.-E.

(934) Sir Edward Conway, secretary of state to James the First, created Baron Conway in 1624; and Edward Conway, his grandson, secretary of state in the reign of Charles the Second, 1679, created Earl of Conway.-E.

(935) The Rev. Thomas Seward, canon residentiary of Lichfield, and father of Ann Seward the poetess.-E.

443 Letter 279 To John Chute, Esq.(936) Arlington Street, August 22, 1758.

By my ramble into Warwickshire I am so behindhand in politics, that I don't know where to begin to tell you any news, and which by this time would not be news to you. My table is covered with gazettes, victories and defeats which have come in such a lump, that I am not quite sure whether it is Prince Ferdinand or Prince Boscawen that has taken Louisbourg, nor whether it is the late Lord Howe or the present that is killed at Cherbourg. I am returning to Strawberry, and shall make Mr. M`untz's German and military sang-froid set the map in my head to rights.

I saw my Lord Lyttelton and Miller at Ragley; the latter put me out of all patience. As he has heard me talked of lately, he thought it not below him to consult me on ornaments for my lord's house. I, who know nothing but what I have purloined from Mr. Bentley and you, and who have not forgotten how little they tasted your real taste and charming plan, was rather lost.--To my comfort, I have seen the plan of their hall; it is stolen from Houghton, and mangled frightfully: and both their eating-room and salon are to be stucco, with pictures.

I have not time or paper to give you a full account of' a vast treasure that I have discovered at Lord Hertford's, and brought away with me. If I were but so lucky as to be thirty years older, i might have been much luckier. In short, I have got the remains of vast quantities of letters and state papers of the two Lords Conway, secretaries of state--forty times as many have been using for the oven and the house, by sentence of a steward during my lord's minority. Most of what I have got are gnawed by rats, rotten, or not worth a straw: and yet I shall save some volumes of what is very curious and valuable--three letters of Mr. Gerrard, of the Charter-house, some of Lord Strafford, and two of old Lennox, the Duchess, etc., etc. In short, if I can but continue to live thirty years extraordinary, in lieu of those I have missed, I shall be able to give to the world some treasures from the press at Strawberry. Do tell me a little of your motions, and good night.

(936) Now first printed.

444 Letter 280 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, Aug. 24, 1758.

You must go into laurels, you must go into mourning. our expedition has taken Cherbourg shamefully--I mean the French lost it shamefully--and then stood looking on while we destroyed all their works, particularly a basin that had cost vast sums. But, to balance their awkwardness with ours, it proved to be an open place, which we might have taken when we were before it a month ago. The fleet is now off Portland, expecting orders for landing or proceeding. Prince Edward gave the ladies a ball, and told them he was too young to know what was good-breeding in France, he would therefore behave as he should if meaning to please in England--and kissed them all. Our next and greatest triumph is the taking of Cape Breton, the account of which came on Friday. The French have not improved like their wines by crossing the sea; but lost their spirit at Louisbourg as much as on their own coast. The success, especially, in the destruction of their fleet, is very great: the triumphs not at all disproportioned to the conquest, of which you will see all the particulars in the Gazette. Now for the chapter of cypresses. The attempt on Crown-point has failed; Lord Howe(937) was killed in a skirmish; and two days afterwards by blunders, rashness, and bad intelligence, we received a great blow at Ticonderoga. There is a Gazette, too, with all the history of this. My hope is that Cape Breton may buy us Minorca and a peace, I have great satisfaction in Captain Hervey's gallantry; not only he is my friend, but I have the greatest regard for and obligations to my Lady Hervey; he is her favourite son and she is particularly happy.

Mr. Wills is arrived and has sent me the medals, for which I give you a million of thanks; the scarce ones are not only valuable for the curiosity of them, but for their preservation. I laughed heartily at the Duke of Argyll, and am particularly pleased with the Jesus Rex noster.(938)

Chevert, the best and most sensible of the French officers, has been beat by a much smaller number under the command of Imhoff, who, I am told, would be very stupid, if a German could be so. I think they hope a little still for Hanover, from this success. Of the King of Prussia--not a word.

My lady Bath has had a paralytic stroke, which drew her mouth aside and took away her speech. I never heard a greater instance of cool sense; she made sign for a pen and ink, and wrote Palsy. They got immediate assistance, and she is recovered.

As I wrote to you but a minute ago, I boldly conclude this already. Adieu!

(937) General George Augustus, third Viscount Howe. He was succeeded in the title by his brother Richard, the celebrated admiral. Mr. George Grenville, in a letter to Mr. Pitt, of the 28th, pays the following tribute to his memory:-"I admired his virtuous, gallant character, and lament his loss accordingly: I cannot help thinking it peculiarly unfortunate for his country and his friends, that he should fall in the first action of this war, before his spirit and his example, and the success and glory which, in all human probability, would have attended them, had produced their full effect on our troops, and those of the enemy." Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 339.-E.

(938) Inscription on a silver coin of the republic of Florence, who declared Jesus Christ their King, to prevent the usurpation of Pope Clement VII.

445 Letter 281 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 2, 1758.

It is well I have got something to pay you for the best letter that ever was! A vast victory, I own, does not entertain me so much as a good letter; but you are bound to like any thing military better than your own wit, and therefore I hope you will think a defeat of the Russians a better bon-mot than any you sent me. Should you think it clever if the King of Prussia has beaten them? How much cleverer if he has taken three lieutenant-generals and an hundred pieces of cannon? How much cleverer still, if he has left fifteen thousand Muscovites dead on the Spot?(939) Does the loss of only three thousand of his own men take off from or sharpen the sting of this joke? In short, all this is fact, as a courier arrived at Sion Hill this morning affirms. The city, I suppose, expect that his Majesty will now be"at leisure to step to Ticonderoga and repair our mishaps.(940) But I shall talk no more politics; if this finds you at Chatworth, as I suppose it will, you will be better informed than from me.

lady Mary Coke arrived at Ragley between two and three in the morning; how unlucky that I was not there to offer her part of an aired bed! But how could you think of the proposal you have made me? Am not I already in love with "the youngest, handsomest, and wittiest widow in England?" As Herculean a labourer as I am, as Tom Hervey says, I don't choose another. I am still in the height of my impatience for the chest of old papers from Ragley, which, either by the fault of their servants, or of the wagoner, is not yet arrived. I shall go to London again on Monday in quest of it; and in truth think so much of it, that, when I first heard of the victory this morning, I rejoiced, as we were likely now to recover the Palatinate. Good night!

(939) The defeat of the Russians at Zorndorf.

(940) The repulse of General Abercrombie at Ticonderoga.

446 Letter 282 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 9, 1758.

Well! the King of Prussia is found again--where do you think? only in Poland, up to the chin in Russians! Was ever such a man! He was riding home from Olmutz; they ran and told him of an army of Muscovites,(941) as you would of a covey of partridges; he galloped thither, and shot them. But what news I am telling you! I forgot that all ours comes by water-carriage, and that you must know every thing a fortnight before us. It is incredible how popular he is here; except a few, who take him for the same person as Mr. Pitt, the lowest of the people are perfectly acquainted with him: as I was walking by the river the other night, a bargeman asked me for something to drink the King of Prussia's health. Yet Mr. Pitt specifies his own glory as much as he can: the standards taken at Louisbourg have been carried to St. Paul's with much parade; and this week, after bringing it by land from Portsmouth, they have dragged the cannon of Cherbourg into Hyde Park, on pretence of diverting a man,(942) whom, in former days, I believe, Mr. Pitt has laughed for loving such rattles as drums and trumpets. Our expedition, since breaking a basin at Cherbourg, has done nothing, but are dodging about still. Prince Edward gave one hundred guineas to the poor of Cherbourg, and the General and Admiral twenty-five apiece. I love charity, but sure is this excess of it, to lay out thousands, and venture so many lives, for the opportunity of giving a Christmas-box to your enemies! Instead of beacons, I suppose, the coast of France will be hung with pewter-pots with a slit in them, as prisons are, to receive our alms.

Don't trouble yourself about the Pope: I am content to find that he will by no means eclipse my friend. You please me with telling me of a collection of medals bought for the Prince of Wales. I hope it Is his own taste; if it is only thought right that he should have it, I am glad.

I am again got into the hands of builders, though this time to a very small extent; only the addition of a little cloister and bedchamber. A day may come that will produce a gallery, a round tower, a large cloister, and a cabinet, in the manner of a little chapel: but I am too poor for these ambitious designs yet, and I have so many ways of dispersing My Money, that I don't know when I shall be richer. However, I amuse myself infinitely; besides my printing-house, which is constantly at work, besides such a treasure of taste and drawing as my friend Mr. Bentley, I have a painter in the house, who is an engraver too, a mechanic, an every thing. He was a Swiss engineer in the French service; but his regiment being broken at the peace, Mr. Bentley found him in the Isle of Jersey and fixed him with me. He has an astonishing genius for landscape, and added to that, all the industry and patience of a German. We are just now practising, and have succeeded surprisingly in a new method of painting, discovered at Paris by Count Caylus, and intended to be the encaustic method of the ancients. My Swiss has painted, I am writing the account,(943) and my press is to notify our improvements. As you will know that way, I will not tell you here at large. In short, to finish all the works I have in hand, and all the schemes I have in my head, I cannot afford to live less than fifty years more. What pleasure it would give me to see you here for a moment! I should think I saw you and your dear brother at once! Can't you form some violent secret expedition against Corsica or Port Mahon, which may make it necessary for you to come and settle here? Are we to correspond till we meet in some unknown world? Alas! I fear so; my dear Sir, you are as little likely to save money as I am--would you could afford to resign your crown and be a subject at Strawberry Hill! Adieu!

P. S. I have forgot to tell you of a wedding in our family; my brother's eldest daughter(944) is to be married tomorrow to lord Albemarle's third brother, a canon of Windsor. We are very happy with the match. The bride is very agreeable, and sensible, and good; not so handsome as her sisters, but further from ugliness than beauty. It is the second, Maria,(945) who is beauty itself! Her face, bloom, eyes, hair, teeth, and person are all perfect. You may imagine how charming she is, when her only fault, if one must find one, is, that her face is rather too round. She has a great deal of wit and vivacity, with perfect modesty. I must tell you too of their brother:(946) he was on the expedition to St. Maloes; a party of fifty men appearing on a hill, he was despatched to reconnoitre with only eight men. Being stopped by a brook, he prepared to leap it; an old sergeant dissuaded him, from the inequality of the numbers. "Oh!" said the boy, "I will tell you what; our profession is bred up to so much regularity that any novelty terrifies them--with our light English horses we will leap this stream; and I'll be d--d if they don't run." He did so, and they did so. However, he was not content; but insisted that each of his party should carry back a prisoner before them. They got eight, when they overtook an elderly man, to whom they offered quarter, bidding him lay down his arms. He replied, "they were English, the enemies of his King and country; that he hated them, and had rather be killed." My nephew hesitated a minute, and said, "I see you are a brave fellow, and don't fear death, but very likely you fear a beating-if you don't lay down your arms this instant, my men shall drub you as long as they can stand over you." The fellow directly flung down his arms in a passion. The Duke of Marlborough sent my brother word of this, adding, it was the only clever action in their whole exploit. Indeed I am pleased with it; for besides his spirit, I don't see, with this thought and presence of mind, why he should not make a general. I return to one little word of the King of Prussia-- shall I tell you? I fear all this time he is only fattening himself with glory for Marshal Daun, who will demolish him at last, and then, for such service, be shut up in some fortress or in the inquisition--for it is impossible but the house of Austria must indemnify themselves for so many mortifications by some horrid ingratitude!

(941) This was the battle of Zorndorf, fought on the @5th of August, 1758, and gained by the King of Prussia over the Russians, commanded by Count Fermor.-D.

(942) The King.

(943) M`untz left Mr. Walpole, and published another account himself.

(944) Laura, this eldest daughter of Sir Edward Walpole, married to Dr. Frederick Keppel, afterwards Dean of Windsor and Bishop of Exeter.

(945) Maria, second daughter, married first to James second Earl of Waldegrave, and afterwards to William Henry Duke of Gloucester, brother to King George the Third.

(946) Edward, only son of Sir Edward Walpole. He died young.

448 Letter 283 To The Rev. Henry Zouch. Strawberry Hill, September 14, 1758.

Sir, Though the approaching edition of my Catalogue is so far advanced that little part is left now for any alteration, yet as a book of that kind is always likely to be reprinted from the new persons who grow entitled to a place in it, and as long as it is in my power I shall wish to correct and improve it, I must again thank you, Sir, for the additional trouble you have given yourself. The very first article strikes me much. May I ask where, and in what page of what book, I can find Sir R. Cotton's account of Richard II.(947) being an author: does not he mean Richard I.?

The Basilicon Doron is published in the folio of K. James's works, and contains instructions to his son, Prince Henry. In return, I will ask you where you find those verses of Herbert; and I would also ask you, how you have had time to find and know so much?

Lord Leicester, and much less the Duke of Monmouth, will scarce, I fear, come under the description I have laid down to myself of authors. I doubt the first did not compose his own Apology.

Did the Earl of Bath publish, or only design to publish, Dionysius?(948) Shall I find the account in Usher's Letters? Since you are so very kind, Sir, as to favour me with your assistance, shall I beg, Sir, to prevent my repeating trouble to you, just to mark at any time where you find the notices you impart to Me; for, though the want of a citation is the effect of my ignorance, it has the same consequence to you.

I have not the Philosophical Transactions, but I will hereafter examine them on the hints you mention, particularly for Lord Brounker,(949) who I did not know had written, though I have often thought it probable he did. As I have considered Lord Berkeley's Love-letters, I have no doubt but they are a fiction, though grounded on a real story.

That Lord Falkland was a writer of controversy appears by the list of his works, and that he is said to have assisted Chillingworth: that he wrote against Chillingworth, you see, Sir, depends upon very vague authority; that is, upon the assertion of an anonymous person, who wrote so above a hundred years ago.

James, Earl of Marlborough, is entirely a new author to me--at present, too late. Lord Raymond I had inserted, and he will appear in the next edition.

I have been as unlucky, for the present, about Lord Totness. In a collection published in Ireland, called Hibernica, I found, but too late, that he translated another very curious piece, relating to Richard II. However, Sir, with these, and the very valuable helps I have received from you, I shall be able, at a proper time, to enrich another edition much.

(947) Mr. Walpole takes no notice of Richard II. as an author; but Mr. park inserts this prince as a writer of ballads. In a letter to Archbishop Usher, Sir Robert Cotton requested his grace to procure for him a poem by Richard II. which that prelate had pointed out.-C.

(948) Spelman's is the only English translation of the Antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassensis, known to be printed.-C.

(949) He wrote several papers in the Philosophical Transactions, and also translated Descartes' Music Compendium.- C.

449 Letter 284 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(950) Arlington Street, Sept. 19, 1758.

I have all my life laughed at ministers in my letters; but at least with the decency of obliging them to break open the seal. You have more noble frankness, and send your satires to the post with not so much as a wafer, as my Lord Bath did sometimes in my father's administration. I scarce laughed more at the inside of your letter than at the cover--not a single button to the waistband of its beseeches, but all its nakedness fairly laid open! what was worse, all Lady Mary Coke's nakedness was laid open at the same time. Is this your way of treating a dainty widow! What will Mr. Pitt think of all this? will he begin to believe that you have some spirit, when, with no fear of Dr. Shebbeare's example(951) before your eyes, you speak your Mind so freely, without any modification? As Mr. Pitt may be cooled a little to his senses, perhaps he may now find out, that a grain of prudence is no bad ingredient in a mass of courage; in short, he and the mob are at last undeceived, and have found, by sad experience that all the cannon of France has not been brought into Hyde Park. An account, which you will see in the Gazette, (though a little better disguised than your letters,) is come that after our troops had been set on shore, and left there, till my Lord Howe went somewhere else, and cried Hoop! having nothing else to do for four days to amuse themselves, nor knowing whether there was a town within a hundred miles, went staring about the country to see whether there were any Frenchmen left in France; which Mr. Pitt, in very fine words, had assured them there was not, and which my Lord Howe, in very fine silence, had confirmed. However, somehow or other, (Mr. Deputy Hodges says they were not French, but Papists sent from Vienna to assist the King of France,) twelve battalions fell upon our rear-guard, and, which General Blighe says is "very Common," (I suppose he means that rashness and folly should run itself' into a scrape,)--were all cut to pieces or taken. The town says, Prince Edward (Duke of York) ran hard to save himself; I don't mean too fast, but scarcely fast enough; and the General says, that Lord Frederick Cavendish, your friend, is safe; the thing he seems to have thought of most, except a little vain parade of his own self-denial on his nephew. I shall not be at all surprised if, to show he was not in the wrong, Mr. Pitt should get ready another expedition by the depth of winter, and send it in search of the cannons and colours of these twelve battalions. Pray Heaven your letter don't put it in his head to give you the command! It is not true, that he made the King ride upon one of the cannons to the Tower.

I was really touched with my Lady Howe's advertisement,(952) though I own at first it made me laugh; for seeing an address to the voters for Nottingham signed "Charlotte Howe," I concluded (they are so manly a family) that Mrs. Howe,(953) who rides a fox-chase, and dines at the table d'h`ote at Grantham, intended to stand for member of Parliament.

Sir John Armitage died on board a ship before the landing; Lady Hardwickc's nephew, Mr. Cocks, scarce recovered of his Cherbourg wound, is killed.' He had seven thousand pounds a year, and was volunteer. I don't believe his uncle and aunt advised his venturing so much money.

My Lady Burlington is very ill, and the distemper shows itself oddly; she breaks out all over in-curses and blasphemies. Her maids are afraid of catching them, and will hardly venture into her room.

On reading over your letter again, I begin to think that the connexion between Mr. Pitt and my dainty widow is stronger than I imagined. One of them must have caught of the other that noble contempt which makes a thing's being impossible not signify. It sounds very well in sensible mouths; but how terrible to be the chambermaid or the army of such people! I really am in a panic, and having some mortal impossibilities about me which a dainty widow might not allow to signify, I will balance a little between her and my Lady Carlisle, who, I believe, knows that impossibilities do signify. These were some of my reflections on reading your letter again; another was, that I am now convinced you sent your letter open to the post on purpose; you knew It was so good a letter that every body ought to see it-and yet you would pass for a modest man!

I am glad I am not in favour enough to be consulted by my Lord Duchess(954) on the Gothic farm; she would have given me so many fine and unintelligible reasons why it should not be as it should be, that I should have lost a little of my patience. You don't tell me if the goose-board in hornbean is quite finished; and have you forgot that I actually was in t'other goose-board, the conjuring room?

I wish you joy on your preferment in the militia, though I do not think it quite so safe an employment as it used to be. If George Townshend's disinterested virtue should grow impatient for a regiment, he will persuade Mr. Pitt that the militia arc the only troops in the world for taking Rochfort. Such a scheme would answer all his purposes - would advance his own interest, contradict the Duke's opinion, who holds militia cheap, and by the ridiculousness of the attempt would furnish very good subjects to his talent of buffoonery in black-lead.

The King of Prussia you may believe is in Petersburg, but he happens to be in Dresden. Good night! Mine and Sir Harry Hemlock's services to my Lady Ailesbury.

(950) Now first printed.

(951) Dr. Shebbeare had just before been sentenced to fine, imprisonment, and the pillory for his Sixth Letter to the People of England. The under-sheriff, however, allowed him to stand on, instead of in, the pillory; for which lenity he was prosecuted.-E.

(952 On the news of the death of Lord Howe reaching the dowager Lady Howe, she addressed the gentry, clergy, and freeholders of Nottingham, whom the deceased represented in Parliament, in favour of his next younger brother, Colonel Howe, to supply his place in the House of Commons. "Permit me," she says, "to implore the protection of every one of you, as the mother of him whose life has been lost in the service of his country." The appeal was responded to, and Colonel, afterwards General Sir William Howe, was returned.-E.

(953) The Hon. Caroline Howe, daughter of the above-mentioned lady , who married her namesake, John Howe, Esq. of Hemslop.-E.

(954) The Duchess of Norfolk. She had planted a game of the goose in hornbean, at Worksop.

451 Letter 285 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 22, 1758.

The confusion of the first accounts and the unwelcomeness of the subject, made me not impatient to despatch another letter so quickly after my last. However, as I suppose the French relations will be magnified, it is proper to let you know the exact truth. Not being content with doing nothing at St. Maloes, and with being suffered to do all we could at Cherbourg, (no great matter,) our land and sea heroes, Mr. Pitt and Lord Howe, projected a third--I don't know what to call it. It seems they designed to take St. Maloes, but being disappointed by the weather, they--what do you think? landed fifteen miles from it, with no object nor near any--and lest that should not be absurd enough, the fleet sailed away for another bay, leaving the army with only two cannons. to scramble to them across the country as they could. Nine days they were staring about France; at last they had notice of twelve battalions approaching, on which they stayed a little before they hurried to the transports. The French followed them at a distance, firing from the upper grounds. When the greatest part were reimbarked, the French descended and fell on the rear, on which it Was necessary to sacrifice the Guards to secure the rest. Those brave young men did wonders--that is, they were cut to pieces with great intrepidity. We lost General Dury and ten other officers; Lord Frederick Cavendish with twenty-three others were taken prisoners. In all we have lost seven hundred men, but more shamefully for the projectors and conductors than can be imagined, for no shadow of an excuse can be offered for leaving them so exposed with no purpose or possible advantage, in the heart of an Enemy's country. What heightens the distress. the army sailed from Weymouth with a full persuasion that they were to be sacrificed to the vainglorious whims of a man of words(955) and a man(956) of none!

"Three expeditions we have sent, And if you bid me show where I know as well as those who went, To St. Maloes, Cherbourg, nowhere."

Those, whose trade or amusement is politics, may comfort themselves with their darling Prussian; he has strode back over 20 or 30,000 Russians,(957) and stepped into Dresden. They even say that Daun is retired. For my part, it is to inform you, that I dwell at all on these things. I am shocked with the iniquities I see and have seen. I abhor their dealings.

"And from my soul sincerely hate Both Kings and Ministers of State!"

I don't know whether I can attain any goodness by shunning them, I am sure their society is contagious Yet I will never advertise my detestation, for if I professed virtue, I should expect to be suspected of designing to be a minister. Adieu! you are good, and wilt keep yourself so.

sept. 25th.

I had sealed my letter, but as it cannot go away till to-morrow, I open it again on receiving yours of Sept. 9th. I don't understand Marshal Botta's being so well satisfied with our taking Louisbourg. Are the Austrians disgusted with the French? Do they begin to repent their alliance? or has he so much sense as to know what improper allies they have got? It is very right in you who are a minister, to combat hostile Ministers--had I been at Florence, I should not have so much contested the authority of the Abb`e de Ville's performance: I have no more doubt of' the convention of Closter-Severn having been scandalously broken, than it was shamelessly disavowed by those who commanded it.

In our loss are included some of our volunteers; a Sir John Armitage, a young man of fortune, just come much into the world, and engaged to the sister(958) of the hot-headed and cool-tongued Lord Howe; a Mr. Cocks, nephew of lady Hardwicke, who could not content himself with seven thousand pounds a-year, without the addition of an ensign's commission - he was not quite recovered of a wound he had got at CHerbourg. The royal volunteer, Prince Edward, behaved with much spirit. Adieu!

(955) Mr. Pitt.-D.

(956) two brothers, successively Lords Howe, were remarkably silent.

(957) The battle of Zorndorf.-D.

(958) Mary, their youngest sister, was afterwards married to General Pitt, brother of George Lord Rivers.

453 Letter 286 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Oct. 3, 1758.

having no news to send you, but the massacre of St. Cas,(959) not agreeable enough for a letter, I stayed till I had something to send you, and behold a book! I have delivered to portly old Richard, your ancient nurse, the new produce of the Strawberry press. You know that the wife of Bath is gone to maunder at St. Peter, and before he could hobble to the gate, my Lady Burlington, cursing and blaspheming, overtook t'other Countess, and both together made such an uproar, that the cock flew up into the tree of life for safety, and St. Peter himself turned the key and hid himself; and as nobody could get into t'other world, half the Guards are come back again, and appeared in the park to-day, but such dismal ghostly figures, that my Lady Townshend was really frightened, and is again likely to turn Methodist.

Do you design, or do you not, to look at Strawberry as you come to town? if you do. I will send a card to my neighbour, Mrs. Holman, to meet you any day five weeks that you please--or I can amuse you without cards; such fat bits of your dear dad, old Jemmy, as I have found among the Conway papers, such morsels of all sorts! but come and see. Adieu!

(959) The army that took the town of Cherbourg, landed again on the coast of France near St. Maloes, but was forced to reimbark in the Bay of St. Cas with the loss of a thousand men.

454 Letter 287 To The Rev. Henry Zouch. Strawberry Hill, October 5th, 1758.

Sir, You make so many apologies for conferring great favours on me, that if you have not a care. I shall find it more convenient to believe that, instead of being grateful, I shall be very good if I am forgiving. If I am impertinent enough to take up this style, at least I promise you I will be very good, and I will certainly pardon as many obligations as you shall please to lay on me.

I have that Life of Richard II. It is a poor thing, and not even called in the title-page Lord Holles's; it is a still lower trick of booksellers to insert names of authors in a catalogue, which, with all their confidence, they do not venture to bestow on the books themselves; I have found several instances of this.

Lord Preston's Boetius I have. From Scotland, I have received a large account of Lord Cromerty, which will appear in my next edition: as my copy is in the press, I do not exactly remember if there is the Tract on Precedency: he wrote a great number of things, and was held it) great contempt living and dead.(960)

I have long sought, and wished to find, some piece of Duke Humphrey:(961) he was a great patron of learning, built the schools, I think, and gave a library to Oxford. Yet, I fear, I may not take the authority of Pits, who is a wretched liar; nor is it at all credible that in so blind an age a Prince, who, with all his love of learning, I fear, had very little of either learning or parts, should write on Astronomy;--had it been on Astrology, it might have staggered me.

My omission of Lord Halifax's maxims was a very careless one, and has been rectified. I did examine the Musae Anglicaanae, and I think found a copy or two, and at first fancied I had found more, till I came to examine narrowly. In the Joys and Griefs of Oxford and Cambridge, are certainly many noble copies; but you judge very right, Sir--they are not to be mentioned, no more than exercises at school, where, somehow or other, every peer has been a poet. To my shame, you are still more in the right about the Duke of Buckingham: if you will give me leave, instead of thinking that he Wrote, hoping to be mistaken for his predecessor, I will believe that he hoped so after he had written.

You are again in the right, Sir, about Lord Abercorn, as the present lord himself informed me. I don't know Lord Godolphin's verses: at most, by your account, he should be in the Appendix; but if they are only signed Sidney Godolphin, they may belong to his uncle, who, if I remember rightly, was one of the troop of verse-writers of that time.

You have quite persuaded me of the mistake in Mindas; till you mentioned it, I had forgot that they wrote Windsor "Windesore," and then by abbreviation the mistake was easy.

The account of Lord Clarendon is printed off; I do mention as printed his account of Ireland, though I knew nothing of Borlase. Apropos, Sir, are you not glad to see that the second part of his history is actually advertised to come out soon after Christmas?(962)

Lord Nottingham's letter I shall certainly mention.

I yesterday sent to Mr. Whiston a little piece that I have just mentioned here, and desired him to convey it to you; you must not expect a great deal from it: yet it belongs so much to my Catalogue, that I thought it a duty to publish it. A better return to some of your civilities is to inform you of Dr. Jortin's Life of Erasmus, with which I am much entertained. There are numberless anecdotes of men thought great in their day, now as much forgotten, that it grows valuable again to hear about them. The book is written with great moderation and goodness of heart: the style is not very striking, and has some vulgarisms, and In a work of that bulk I should rather have taken more pains to digest and connect it into a flowing narrative, than drily give it as a diary: yet I dare promise it will amuse you much.

With your curiosity, Sir, and love of information, I am sure you will be glad to hear of a most valuable treasure that I have discovered; it is the collection of state papers,(963) amassed by the two Lords Conway, that were secretaries of state, and their family: vast numbers have been destroyed; yet I came time enough to retrieve vast numbers, many, indeed, in a deplorable condition. They were buried under lumber' upon the pavement of an unfinished chapel, at Lord Hertford's in Warwickshire, and during his minority, and the absence of his father, an ignorant steward delivered them over to the oven and kitchen, and yet had not been able to destroy them all. It is a vast work to dry, range, and read them, and to burn the useless, as bills, bonds, and every other kind of piece of paper that ever came into a house, and were all jumbled and matted together. I propose, by degrees, to print the most curious; of which, I think, I have already selected enough to form two little volumes of the size of my Catalogue. Yet I will not give too great expectations about them, because I know how often the public has been disappointed when they came to see in print what in manuscript has appeared to the editor wonderfully choice.

(960) We can hardly account for this expression, unless Mr. Walpole alludes to Lord Cromerty's political reputation. Macky states, that " his arbitrary proceedings had rendered him so obnoxious to the people, he could not be employed;" and, certainly, his character for consistency and integrity was not very exalted: but almost all contemporary writers describe him as a man of great weight and of singular endowments; and Walpole himself, in his subsequent editions, calls him "a person eminent for his learning, and for his abilities as a statesman and general."-C.

(961) That Duke Humphrey had at least a relish for learning, may be inferred from the following passage. At the close of a fine manuscript in the Cotton collection (Nero E. v.) is "Origo et processus gentis Scotorum, ae de superioritate Regum Angliae super regnum illud." It once belonged to Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, and has this Sentence in his own handwriting at the end, "Cest livre est `a moy Homfrey Duc de Gloucestre, lequel j'achetay des executeurs de maistre Thomas Polton, feu evesque de Wurcestre." Bishop Polton died in 1436.-C.

(962) The second part of Lord Clarendon's history was printed in folio, in 1760, and also in three volumes octavo.-C.

(963) The increased and increasing taste of the public for the materials of history, such as these valuable papers supply, will, we have reason to hope, be gratified by the approaching appearance of this collection, publication of which was, we see, contemplated even as long since as 1758.-C.

456 Letter 288 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey. Arlington Street, Oct. 17, 1758.

Your ladyship, I hope, will not think that such a strange thing as my own picture seems of consequence enough to me to write a letter about it: but obeying your commands does seem so; lest you should return and think I had neglected it, I must say that I have come to town three several times on purpose, but Mr. Ramsay (I will forgive him) has been constantly Out of town. So much for that.

I would have sent you word that the King of Portugal coming along the road at midnight, which was in his own room at noon, his foot slipped, and three balls went through his body; which, however, had no other consequence than giving him a stroke of a palsy, of which he is quite recovered, except being dead.(964) Some, indeed, are so malicious as to say, that the Jesuits, who are the most conscientious men in the world, murdered him, because he had an intrigue with another man's wife: but all these histories I supposed your ladyship knew better than me, as, till I came to town yesterday, I imagined you was returned. For my own part, about whom you are sometimes so good as to interest yourself, I am as well as can be expected after the murder of a king and the death of a person of the next consequence to a king, the master of the ceremonies, poor Sir Clement,(965) who is supposed to have been suffocated by my Lady Macclesfield's(966) kissing hands.

This will be a melancholy letter, for I have nothing to tell your ladyship but tragical stories. Poor Dr. Shawe(967) being sent for in great haste to Claremont--(It seems the Duchess had caught a violent cold by a hair of her own whisker getting up her nose and making her sneeze)--the poor Doctor, I say, having eaten a few mushrooms before he set out, was taken so ill, that he was forced to stop at Kingston; and, being carried to the first apothecary's, prescribed a medicine for himself which immediately cured him. This catastrophe so alarmed the Duke of Newcastle, that he immediately ordered all the mushroom beds to be destroyed, and even the toadstools in the park did not escape scalping in this general massacre. What I tell you is literally true. Mr. Stanley, who dined there last Sunday, and is not partial against that court, heard the edict repeated, and confirmed it to me last night. And a voice of lamentation was heard at Ramah in Claremont, Chlo`e(968) weeping for her mushrooms, and they are not!

After all these important histories, I would try to make you smile, If I was not afraid you would resent a little freedom taken with a great name. May I venture?

"Why Taylor the quack calls himself Chevalier, 'Tis not easy a reason to render; Unless blinding eyes, that he thinks to make clear, Demonstrates he's but a Pretender.

A book has been left at your ladyship's house; it is Lord Whitworth's Account of Russia.(969) Monsieur Kniphausen has promised me some curious anecdotes of the Czarina Catherine-so my shop is likely to flourish. I am your ladyship's most obedient servant.

(964) Alluding to the incoherent stories told at the time of the assassination of the King of Portugal. [The following is the correct account:--As the King was taking The air in his coach on the 3d September, attended by only one domestic, he was attacked in a solitary lane near Belem by three men, one of whom discharged his carbine at the coachman, and wounded him dangerously; the other two fired their blunderbusses at the King, loaded with pieces of iron, and wounded him in the face and several parts of his body, but chiefly in the right arm, which disabled him for a long time.

(965) Sir Clement Cotterel.

(966) She had been a common woman.

(967) Physician to the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle.

(968) The Duke of Newcastle's cook.

(969) A small octavo printed at the Strawberry Hill press, to which Walpole prefixed a preface. Charles Whitworth, in 1720, created Baron Whitworth of Galway, was ambassador to the court of petersburgh in the reign of Peter the Great. On his death, in 1725, the title became extinct.-E.

457 Letter 289 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(970) Arlington Street, Oct. 17, 1758.

I have read your letter, as you may believe, with the strictest attention, and will tell you my thoughts as sincerely as you do and have a right to expect them.

In the first place, I think you far from being under any obligation for this notice. If Mr. Pitt is sensible that he has used you very ill, is it the part of an honest man to require new submissions, new supplications from the person he has injured? If he thinks you proper to command, as one must suppose by this information, is it patriotism that forbids him to employ an able officer, unless that officer sues to be employed? Does patriotism bid him send out a man that has had a stroke of a palsy, preferable to a young man of vigour and capacity, only because the latter has made' no Application within these two months!--But as easily as I am inclined to believe that your merit makes its way even through the cloud of Mr. Pitt's proud prejudices, yet I own in the present case I question it. I can see two reasons why he should wish to entice you to this application: the first is, the clamour against his giving all commands to young or improper officers is extreme; Holmes, appointed admiral of the blue but six weeks ago, has writ a warm letter on the chapter of subaltern commanders: the second, and possibly connected in his mind with the former, may be this; he would like to refuse you, and then say, you had asked when it was too late; and at the same time would have to say that he would have employed you if you had asked sooner. This leads me to the point of time: Hobson is not Only appointed,(971) but Haldane, though going governor to Jamaica, is made a brigadier and joined to him,--Colonel Barrington set out to Portsmouth last night. All these reasons, I think, make it very improper for you to ask this command now. You have done more than enough to satisfy your honour, and will certainly have opportunities again of repeating offers of your service. But though it may be right to ask in general to serve, I question much if it is advisable to petition for particulars, any failure in which would be charged entirely on you. I should wish to have you vindicated by the rashness of Mr. Pitt and the miscarriages of others, as I think they hurry to -make you be; but while he bestows only impracticable commands, knowing that, if there is blood enough shed, the city of London will be content even with disappointments, I hope you will not be sacrificed either to the mob or the minister. And this leads me to the article of the expedition itself. Martinico is the general notion; a place the strongest in the world, with a garrison of ten thousand men. Others now talk of Guadaloupe, almost as strong and of much less consequence. Of both, every body that knows, despairs. It is almost impossible for me to find out the real destination.' I avoid every one of the three factions--and though I might possibly learn the secret from the chief of one of them, if he knows it, yet I own I do not care to try; I don't think it fair to thrust myself into secrets with a man (972) of whose ambition and views I do not think well, and whose purposes (in those lights) I have declined and will decline to serve. Besides, I have reason just now to think that he and his court are meditating some attempt which may throw us again into confusion; and I had rather not be told what I am sure I shall not approve: besides, I cannot ask secrets of this nature without hearing more with which I would not be trusted, and which, if divulged, would be imputed to me. I know you will excuse me for these reasons, especially as you know how much I would do to serve you, and would even in this case, if I was not convinced that it is too late for you to apply; and being too late, they would be glad to say you had asked too late. Besides if any information could be got from the channel at which I have hinted, the Duke of Richmond could get it better than I; and the Duke of Devonshire could give it you without.

I can have no opinion of the expedition itself, which certainly started from the disappointment at St. Cas, if it can be called a disappointment where there was no object. I have still more doubts on Lord Milton's authority; Clarke(973) was talked to by the Princess yesterday much more than any body in the room. Cunningham is made quartermaster-general to this equipment; these things don't look as if your interest was increased. As Lord George has sent over his commands for Cunningham, might not his art at the same time have suggested some application to you--tell me, do you think he would ask this command for himself I, who am not of so honest and sincere a nature as you are, suspect that this hint is sent to you with some bad view-I don't mean on Lord Milton's part, who I dare say is deceived by his readiness to serve you; and since you do me the honour of letting me at all judge for you, which in one light I think I am fit to do, I mean, as your spirit naturally makes you overlook every thing to get employed, I would wish you to answer to Lord Milton,,"that you should desire of all things to have had this command, but that having been discouraged from asking what you could not flatter yourself would be granted, it would look, you think, a vain offer, to sue for what is now given away, and would not be consistent with your honour to ask when it is too late." I hint this, as such an answer would turn their arts on themselves, if, as I believe, they mean to refuse you, and to reproach you with asking too late.

If the time is come for Mr. Pitt to want you, you will not long be unemployed; if it is not, then you would get nothing by asking. Consider, too, how much more graceful a reparation of your honour it will be, to have them forced to recall you, than to force yourself on desperate service, as if you yourself, not they, had injured your reputation.

I can say nothing now on any other chapter, this has so much engrossed all my thoughts. I see no one reason upon earth for your asking now. If you ever should ask again, you will not want opportunities; and the next time you ask, will have just the same merit that this could have, and by asking in time, would be liable to none of the objections of that sort which I have mentioned! Adieu! Timeo Lord George et dona.

(970) Now first printed.

(971) To the command of an expedition against Martinique.-E.

(972) Mr. Fox.

(973) Lord Bute says, in a letter to Mr. Pitt, of the 8th of September, "With regard to Clarke, I know him well: he must be joined to a general in whom he has confidence, or not thought of. Never was man so cut out for bold and hardy enterprises; but the person who commands him must think in the same way of him, or the affair of Rochfort will return." Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 350.-E.

459 Letter 290 To The Rev. Henry Zouch. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 21st, 1758.

Sir, Every letter I receive from you is a new obligation, bringing me new information; but, sure, my Catalogue was not worthy of giving you so much trouble. Lord Fortescue is quite new to me: I have sent him to the press. Lord Dorset's poem it will be unnecessary to mention separately, as I have already said that his works are to be found among those of the minor poets.

I don't wonder, Sir, that you prefer Lord Clarendon to Polybius; nor can two authors well be more unlike: the former(974) wrote a general history in a most obscure and almost unintelligible style; the latter-, a portion of private history, in the noblest style in the world. Whoever made the comparison, I will do them the justice to believe that they understood bad Greek better than their own language in its elevation.

For Dr. Jortin's Erasmus, which I have very nearly finished, it has given me a good opinion of the author, and he has given me a very bad one of his subject. By the Doctor's labour and impartiality, Erasmus appears a begging parasite, who had parts enough to discover truth, and not courage enough to profess it: whose vanity made him always writing; yet Ills writings ought to have cured his vanity, as they were the most abject things in the world. Good Erasmus's honest mean was alternate time-serving. I never had thought much about him, and now heartily despise him.

When I speak my opinion to you, Sir, about what I dare say you care as little for as I do, (for what is the merit of a mere man of letters?) it is but fit I should answer you as sincerely on a question about which you are so good as to interest yourself. that my father's life is likely to be written, I have no grounds for believing. I mean I know nobody that thinks of it. For myself, I certainly shall not, for many reasons, which you must have the patience to hear. A reason to me myself is, that I think too highly of him, and too meanly of myself, to presume I am equal to the task. They who do not agree with me in the former part of my position, will undoubtedly allow the latter part. In the next place, the very truths that I should relate would be so much imputed to

## partiality, that he would lose of his due praise by the

suspicion of my prejudice. In the next place, I was born too late in his life to be acquainted with him in the active part of it. Then I was at school, at the university, abroad, and returned not till the last moments of his administration. What I know of him I could only learn from his own mouth in the last three years of his life; when, to my shame, I was so idle, and young, and thoughtless, that I by no means profited of his leisure as I might have done; and, indeed, I have too much impartiality in my nature to care, if I could, to give the world a history, collected solely from the person himself of whom I should write. With the utmost veneration for his truth, I can easily conceive, that a man who had lived a life of party, and who had undergone such persecution from party, should have had greater bias than he himself could be sensible of. The last, and that a reason which must be admitted, if all the others are not--his papers are lost. Between the confusion of his affairs, and the indifference of my elder brother to things of that sort, they were either lost, burnt, or what we rather think, were stolen by a favourite servant of my brother, who proved a great rogue, and was dismissed in my brother's life; and the papers were not discovered to be missing till after my brother's death. Thus, Sir, I should want vouchers for many things I could say of much importance. I have another personal reason that discourages me from attempting this task, or any other, besides the great reluctance that I have to being a voluminous author. Though I am by no means the learned man you are so good as to call me in compliment; though, on the contrary, nothing can be more superficial than my knowledge, or more trifling than my reading,--yet, I have so much strained my eyes, that it is often painful to me to read even a newspaper by daylight. In short, Sir, having led a very dissipated life, in all the hurry of the world of pleasures scarce ever read, but by candlelight, after I have come home late at nights. As my eyes have never had the least inflammation or humour, I am assured I may still recover them by care and repose. I own I prefer my eyes to any thing I could ever read, much more to any thing I could write. However, after all I have said, perhaps I may now and then, by degrees, throw together some short anecdotes of my father's private life and particular story, and leave his public history to more proper and more able hands, if such will undertake it. Before I finish on this chapter, I can assure you he did forgive my Lord Bolingbroke(975)--his nature was forgiving: after all was over, and he had nothing to fear or disguise, I can say with truth, that there were not three men of whom he ever dropped a word with rancour. What I meant of the clergy not forgiving Lord Bolingbroke, alluded not to his doctrines, but to the direct attack and war he made on the whole body. And now, Sir, I will confess my own weakness to you. I do not think so highly of that writer, as I seem to do in my book; but I thought it would be imputed to prejudice in me, if I appeared to undervalue an author of whom so many persons of sense still think highly. My being Sir Robert Walpole's son warped me to praise, instead of censuring, Lord Bolingbroke. With regard to the Duke of Leeds, I think you have misconstrued the decency of my expression. I said, Burnet had treated him severely; that is, I chose that Burnet should say so, rather than myself. I have never praised where my heart condemned. Little attentions, perhaps, to worthy descendants, were excusable in a work of so extensive a nature, and that approached so near to these times. I may, perhaps, have an opportunity at one day or other of showing you some passages suppressed on these motives, which yet I do not intend to destroy.

Crew, Bishop of Durham, was is abject a tool as possible. I would be very certain he is an author before I should think him worth mentioning. If ever you should touch on Lord Willoughby's sermon, I should be obliged for a hint of it. I actually have a printed copy of verses by his son, on the marriage of the Princess Royal; but they are so ridiculously unlike measure, and the man was so mad and so poor,(976) that I determined not to mention them.

If these details, Sir, which I should have thought interesting to no mortal but myself', should happen to amuse you, I shall be glad; if they do not, you will learn not to question a man who thinks it his duty to satisfy the curiosity of men of sense and honour, and who, being of too little consequence to have secrets, is not ambitious of the less consequence of appearing to have any.

P. S. I must ask you one question, but to be answered entirely at your leisure. I have a play in rhyme called Saul, said to be written by a peer. I guess Lord Orrery. If ever you happen to find out, be so good to tell me.

(974) It is evident that Mr. Walpole has here transposed, contrary to his meanings the references to lord Clarendon and Polybius: the latter wrote the general history, the former the portion of history.-C.

(975) This alludes to an epigrammatic passage in the article "Bolingbroke" in the Noble Authors. "He wrote against Sir Robert Walpole, who did forgive him; and against the clergy, who never will forgive him."@.

(976) this seems a singular reason for excluding him from a list of authors@-C.

462 Letter 291 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Oct. 24, 1758.

I am a little sorry that my preface, like the show-cloth to a sight, entertained you more than the bears it invited you in to see. I don't mean that I am not glad to have written any thing that meets your approbation, but if Lord Whitworth's work is not better than my preface, I fear he has much less merit than I thought he had.

Your complaint of your eyes makes me feel for you: mine have been very weak again, and I am taking the bark, which did them so much service last year. I don't know how to give up the employment of them, I mean reading; for as to writing, I am absolutely winding up my bottom, for twenty reasons. The first, and perhaps the best, I have writ enough. The next; by what I have writ, the world thinks I am not a fool, which was just what I wished them to think, having always lived in terror of that oracular saying Ermu naidex luchoi, which Mr. Bentley translated with so much more parts than the vain and malicious hero could have done that set him the task, --I mean his father, the sons of heroes are loobies. My last reason is, I find my little stock of reputation very troublesome, both to maintain and to undergo the consequences--it has dipped me in erudite correspondences--I receive letters every week that compliment my learning; now, as there is nothing I hold so cheap as a learned man, except an unlearned one, this title Is insupportable to me; if' I have not a care, I shall be called learned, till somebody abuses me for not being learned, as they, not I, fancied I was. In short, I propose to have nothing more to do with the world, but divert myself in it as an obscure passenger--pleasure, virt`u, politics, and literature, I have tried them all, and have had enough of them. Content and tranquillity, with now and then a little of three of them, that I may not grow morose, shall satisfy the rest of a life that is to have much idleness, and I hope a little goodness; for politics--a long adieu! With some of the Cardinal de Retz's experience, though with none of his genius, I see the folly of taking a violent part without any view, (I don't mean to commend a violent part with a view, that is still worse;) I leave the state to be scrambled for by Mazarine, at once cowardly and enterprising, ostentatious, jealous, and false; by Louvois, rash and dark; by Colbert, the affecter of national interest, with designs not much better; and I leave the Abb`e de la Rigbi`ere to sell the weak Duke of Orleans to whoever has money to buy him, or would buy him to get money; at least these are my present reflections--if I should change them to-morrow, remember I am not only a human creature, but that I am I, that is, one of the weakest of human creatures, and so sensible of my fickleness that I am sometimes inclined to keep a diary of my mind, as people do of the weather. To-day you see it temperate, to-morrow it may again blow politics and be stormy; for while I have so much quicksilver left, I fear my passionometer will be susceptible of sudden changes. What do years give one? Experience; experience, what? Reflections; reflections, what? nothing that I ever could find--nor can I well agree with Waller, that

"The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made."

Chinks I am afraid there are, but instead of new light, I find nothing but darkness visible, that serves only to discover sights of Wo. I look back through my chinks--I find errors, follies, faults; forward, old age and death, pleasures fleeting from me, no virtues succeeding to their place--il faut avouer, I want all my quicksilver to make such a background receive any other objects!

I am glad Mr. Frederick Montagu thinks so well of me as to be sure I shall be glad to see him without an invitation. For you, I had already perceived that you would not come to Strawberry this year. Adieu!

463 Letter 292 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 24, 1758.

It is a very melancholy present I send you here, my dear Sir; yet, considering the misfortune that has befallen us, perhaps the most agreeable I could send you. You will not think it the bitterest tear you have shed when you drop one over this plan of an urn inscribed with the name of your dear brother, and with the testimonial of my eternal affection to him! This little monument is at last placed over the pew of your family at Linton, and I doubt whether any tomb was ever erected that spoke so much truth of the departed, and flowed from so much sincere friendship in the living. The thought was my own, adopted from the antique columbaria, and applied to Gothic. The execution of the design was Mr. Bentley's, who alone, of all mankind, could unite the grace of Grecian architecture and the irregular lightness and solemnity of Gothic. Kent and many of our builders sought this, but have never found it. Mr. Chute, who has as much taste @s Mr. Bentley, thinks this little sketch a perfect model. The soffite is more beautiful than any thing of either style separate. There is a little error in the inscription; it should be Horatius Walpole posuit. The urn is of marble, richly polished; the rest of stone. On the whole, I think there is simplicity and decency, with a degree of ornament that destroys neither.

What do you say in Italy on the assassination of the King of Portugal? Do you believe that Portuguese subjects lift their hand against a monarch for gallantry? Do you believe that when a slave murders an absolute prince, he goes a walking with his wife the next morning and murders her too'! Do you believe the dead King is alive? and that the Jesuits are as wrongfully suspected of this assassination as they have been of many others they have committed? If you do believe this, and all this, you are not very near turning Protestants. It is scarce talked of here, and to save trouble, we admit just what the Portuguese minister is ordered to publish. The King of Portugal murdered, throws us two hundred years back--the King of Prussia not murdered, carries us two hundred years forward again.

Another King, I know, has had a little blow: the Prince de Soubise has beat some Isenbourgs and Obergs, and is going to be Elector of Hanover this winter. There has been a great sickness among our troops in the other German army; the Duke of Marlborough has been in great danger, and some officers are dead. Lord Frederick Cavendish is returned from France. He confirms and adds to the amiable accounts we had received of the Duc d'Aiguillon's behaviour to our prisoners. You yourself, the pattern of attentions and tenderness, could not refine on what he has done both in good-nature and good-breeding: he even forbad any ringing of bells or rejoicings wherever they passed--but how your representative blood will curdle when you hear of the absurdity of one of your countrymen: the night after the massacre at St. Cas, the Duc d'Aiguillon gave a magnificent supper of eighty covers to our prisoners--a Colonel Lambert got up at the bottom of the table, and asking for a bumper, called out to the Duc, "My Lord Duke, here's the Roy de France!" You must put all the English you can crowd into the accent. My Lord Duke was so confounded at this preposterous compliment, which it was impossible for him to return, that he absolutely sank back into his chair and could not utter a syllable: our own people did not scorn to feel more.

You will read and hear that we have another expedition sailing, somewhither in the West Indies. Hobson, the commander, has in his whole life had but one stroke of a palsy, so possibly may retain half of his understanding at least. There is great tranquillity at home, but I should think not promising duration. The disgust in the army on the late frantic measures will furnish some warmth probably to Parliament--and if the French should think of returning our visits, should you wonder? There are even rumours of some stirring among your little neighbours at Albano--keep your eye on them--if you could discover any thing in time, it would do you great credit. Apropos to them,, I will send you an epigram that I made the other day on Mr. Chute's asking why Taylor the oculist called himself Chevalier.

Why Taylor the quack calls himself Chevalier, 'Tis not easy a reason to render; Unless he would own, what his practice makes clear, That at best he is but a Pretender.

465 Letter 293 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Nov. 26, 1758.

How can you make me formal excuses for sending me a few covers to frank? Have you so little right to any act of friendship from me, that you should apologize for making me do what is scarce any act at all? However, your man has not called for the covers, although they have been ready this fortnight.

I shall be very glad to see your brother in town, but I cannot quite take him in full of payment. I trust you will stay the longer for coming the later. There is not a syllable of news. The Parliament is met, but empty and totally oppositionless. Your great Cu moved in the lords, but did not shine much. The great Cu of all Cues is out of order, not in danger, but certainly breaking.

My eyes are performing such a strict quarantine, that you must excuse my brevity. Adieu.

465 Letter 294 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Nov. 27, 1758.

it seems strange that at this time of the year, with armies still in the field and Parliaments in town, I should have had nothing to tell you for above a month--yet so it was. The King caught cold on coming to town, and was very ill,(977) but the gout, which had never been at court above twice in his reign, came, seized his foot a little, and has promised him at least five or six years more--that is, if he will take care of himself; but yesterday, the coldest day we have felt, he would go into the drawing-room, as if he was fond of showing the new stick @e is forced to walk with.

The Parliament is all harmony, and thinks of nothing but giving away twelve more millions. Mr. Pitt made the most artful speech he ever made: provoked, called for, defied objections; promised enormous expense, demanded never to be judged by events. Universal silence left him arbiter of his own terms. In short, at present he is absolute master, and if he can coin twenty millions may command them. He does every thing, the Duke of Newcastle gives every thing. As long as they can agree in this partition, they may do what they will.

We have been in great anxiety for twenty-four hours to learn the fate of Dresden, and of the King of resources, as Mr. Beckford called the King of Prussia the other day. We heard that while he was galloped to raise the siege of Neiss, Marshal Daun was advanced to Dresden; that Schmettau had sent to know if he meant to attack it, having orders to burn the Fauxbourgs and defend it street by street; that Daun not deigning a reply, the Conflagration had been put in execution; that the King was posting back, and Dohna advancing to join him. We expect to hear either of the demolition of the city, or of a bloody decision fought under the walls--an account is just arrived that Daun(978) is retired, thus probably the campaign is finished, and another year of massacre to come. One could not but be anxious at such a crisis-one felt for Dresden, and pitied the Prince Royal shut up in his own capital, a mere spectator of its destruction; one trembled for the decisive moment of the life of such a man as the King of Prussia. It is put off--yet perhaps he will scarce recover so favourable a moment. He had assembled his whole force, except a few thousands left to check the Swedes. Next year this force must be again parcelled out against Austrians, Russians, Swedes, and possibly French. He must be more than a King Of resources if he can for ever weather such tempests!

Knyphausen(979) diverted me yesterday with some anecdotes of the Empress's college of chastity-not the Russian Empress's. The King of Prussia asked some of his Austrian prisoners whether their mistress consulted her college of chastity on the letters she wrote (and he intercepted) to Madame Pompadour.

You have heard some time ago of the death of the Duke of Marlborough.(980) The estate is forty-five thousand pounds a-year--nine of which are jointured out. He paid but eighteen thousand pounds a-year in joint lives. This Duke and the estate save greatly by his death, as the present wants a year of being of age, and would certainly have accommodated his father in agreeing to sell and pay. Lord Edgcumbe(981) is dead too, one of the honestest and most steady men in the world.

I was much diverted with your histories of our Princess(982) and Madame de Woronzow. Such dignity as Madame de Craon's wants a little absolute power to support it! Adieu! my dear Sir.

(977) Lord Chesterfield, writing on the 21st to his son, says, "The King has been ill; but his illness has terminated in a good fit of the gout. It was generally thought he would have died, and for a very good reason; for the oldest lion in the Tower, much about the King's age, died about a fortnight ago. This extravagancy, I can assure you, was believed by many above people. So wild and capricious is the human mind!"-E.

(978) "The King of Prussia has just compelled Daun to raise the siege of Dresden, in spite of his (the King's) late most disastrous defeat by the same general at Bochkirchen, which had taken place on the 14th of October, 1758.-D.

(979) The Prussian minister.

(980) Charles Spencer, second Duke of Marlborough. He died, on the 28th of October at Munster, in Westphalia.-E.

(981) Richard, first Lord Edgcumbe; an intimate friend of Sir Robert Walpole.

(982) The Princess Craon.

467 Letter 295 To The Rev. Henry Zouch. Arlington Street, Dec. 9, 1758.

Sir, I have desired Mr. Whiston to convey to you the second edition of my Catalogue, not so complete as it might have been, if great part had not been printed before I received your remarks, but yet more correct than the first sketch with which I troubled you. Indeed, a thing of this slight and idle nature does not deserve to have much more pains employed upon it.

I am just undertaking an edition of Lucan, my friend Mr. Bentley having in his possession his father's notes and emendations on the first seven books. Perhaps a partiality for the original author concurs a little. with this circumstance of the notes, to make me fond of printing, at Strawberry Hill, the works of a man who, alone of all the classics, was thought to breathe too brave and honest a spirit for the perusal of the Dauphin and the French. I don't think that a good or bad taste in poetry is of so serious a nature, that I should be afraid of owning too, that, with that great judge Corneille, and with that, perhaps, no judge Heinsius, I prefer Lucan to Virgil. To speak fairly, I prefer great sense to poetry with little sense. There are hemistics in Lucan that go to one's soul and one's heart;--for a mere epic poem, a fabulous tissue of uninteresting battles that don't teach one even to fight, I know nothing more tedious. The poetic images, the versification and language of the Aeneid are delightful; but take the story by itself, and can any thing be more silly and unaffeCting? There are a few gods without power, heroes without character, heaven-directed wars without justice, inventions without probability, and a hero who betrays one woman with a kingdom that he might have had, to force himself upon another woman and another kingdom to which he had no pretensions, and all this to show his obedience to the gods! In short, I have always admired his numbers so much, and his meaning so little, that I think I should like Virgil better if I understood him less.

Have you seen, Sir, a book which has made some noise--Helvetius de l'Esprit? The author is so good and moral a man, that I grieve he should have published a system of as relaxed morality as can well be imagined.-. 'tis a large quarto, and in general a very superficial one. His philosophy may be new in France, but is greatly exhausted here. He tries to imitate Montesquieu, and has heaped commonplaces upon commonplaces, which supply or overwhelm his reasoning; yet he has often wit, happy allusion;, and sometimes writes finely: there is merit enough to give an obscure man fame; flimsiness enough to depreciate a great man. After his book was licensed, they forced him to retract it by a most abject recantation. Then why print this book? If zeal for his system pushed him to propagate it, did not he consider that a recantation would hurt his cause more than his arguments could support it.

We are promised Lord Clarendon in February from Oxford, though I hear shall have the surreptitious edition from Holland much sooner.

You see, Sir, I am a sceptic as well as Helvetius, but of a more moderate complexion. There is no harm in telling mankind that there is not so much divinity in the Aeneid as they imagine; but, (Even if I thought so,) I would not preach that virtue and friendship are mere names, and resolvable into self-interest; because there are numbers that would remember the grounds of the principle, and forget what was to be engrafted on it. Adieu!

468 Letter 296 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, Christmas-day, 1758.

Adieu! my dear Sir--that is, adieu to our correspondence, for I am neither dying nor quarrelling with you; but as we, Great- Britons, are quarrelling with all Europe, I think very soon I shall not be able to convey a letter to you, but by the way of Africa, and am afraid the post-offices are not very well regulated. In short, we are on the brink of a Dutch war too. Their merchants are so enraged that we will not only not suffer them to enrich themselves by carrying all the French trade, and all kinds of military stores to the French settlements, but that they lose their own ships into the bargain, that they are ready to despatch the Princess Royal(983) into the other world even before her time; if her death arrives soon, and she is thought in great danger, it will be difficult for any body else to keep the peace. Spain and Denmark are in little better humour--well, if We have not as many lives as a cat or the King of Prussia! However, our spirits do not droop; we are raising thirteen millions, we look upon France as totally undone, and that they have not above five loaves and a few small fishes left; we intend to take all America from them next summer, and then if Spain and Holland are not terrified, we shall be at leisure to deal with them. Indeed, we are rather in a hurry to do all this, because people may be weary of paying thirteen millions; and besides it may grow decent for Mr. Pitt to visit his gout, which this year he has been forced to send to the Bath without him. I laugh, but seriously we are in a critical situation; and it is as true, that if Mr. Pitt had not exerted the spirit and activity that he has, we should ere now have been past a critical situation. Such a war as ours carried on by my Lord Hardwicke, with the dull dilatoriness of a Chancery suit, would long ago have reduced us to what suits in Chancery reduce most people! At present our unanimity is prodigious-- you Would as soon hear No from an old maid as from the House of Commons--but I don't promise you that this tranquillity will last.(984) One has known more ministries overturned of late years by their own squabbles than by any assistance from Parliaments.

Sir George Lee, formerly an heir-apparent(985) to the ministry is dead. it was almost sudden, but he died with great composure. Lord Arran(986) went off with equal philosophy. Of the great house of Ormond there now remains only his sister, Lady Emily Butler, a young heiress of ninety-nine.

It is with great pleasure I tell you that Mr. Conway is going to Sluys to settle a cartel with the French. The commission itself is honourable, but more pleasing as it re-establishes him--I should say his merit re-establishes him. All the world now acknowledges it--and the insufficiency of his brother-generals makes it vain to oppress him any longer.

I am happy that you are pleased with the monument, and vain that you like the Catalogue(987)--if it would not look too vain, I would tell you that it was absolutely undertaken and finished within five months. Indeed, the faults in the first edition and the deficiencies show it was; I have just printed another more correct.

Of the Pretender's family one never hears a word: unless our Protestant brethren the Dutch meddle in their affairs, they will be totally forgotten; we have too numerous a breed of our own, to want Princes from Italy. The old Chevalier by your account is likely to precede his rival, who with care may still last a few years, though I think will scarce appear again out of his own house.

I want to ask you if it is possible to get the royal edition of the Antiquities of Herculaneum?(988) and I do not indeed want you to get it for me unless I am to pay for it. Prince San Severino has told the foreign ministers here that there are to be twelve hundred volumes, of it--and they believe it. I imagine the fact is, that there are but twelve hundred copies printed. Could Cardinal Albani get it for me? I would send him my Strawberry-editions, and the Birmingham-editions(988) in exchange--things here much in fashion.

The night before I came from town, we heard of the fall of the Cardinal de Bernis,(989) but not the cause of it(990)--if we have a Dutch war, how many cardinals will fall in France and in England, before you hear of these or I of the former! I have always written to you with the greatest freedom, because I care more that you should be informed of the state of your own country, than what secretaries of state or their clerks think of me,--but one must be more circumspect if the Dey of Algiers is to open one's letters. Adieu!

(983) The Princess Dowager of Orange, eldest daughter of George II.

(984) Lord Chesterfield, in a letter of the 15th, says, "The estimates for the expenses of the year 1759 are made up. I have seen them; and what do you think they amount to? No less than twelve millions three hundred thousand pounds: a most incredible sum, and its yet already all subscribed, and even more offered! The unanimity in the House of Commons in voting such a sum, and such forces, both by sea and land, is not less astonishing. This is Mr. Pitt's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes."-E.

(985) Frederick, Prince of Wales, had designed, if he outlived the King, to make Sir George Lee chancellor of the exchequer.

(986) He was Charles Butler, the second and last surviving son of Thomas, Earl of Ossory, eldest son of the first Duke of Ormond. He had been created, in 1693, Baron Clogligrenan, Viscount Tullough, and Earl of Arran, in Ireland; and at the same time Baron Butler of Weston, in the Peerage of England. Dying without issue his titles became extinct.-D.

(987) The Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors.

(988) Editions printed with the Baskerville types.-D.

(989) The Cardinal de Bernis was a frivolous and incapable minister, who was equally raised and overthrown by the influence of the King of France's mistress, Madame de Pompadour.-D.

(990) "Cardinal Bernis's disgrace," says Lord Chesterfield, "is as sudden, and hitherto as little understood, as his elevation was. I have seen his poems printed at Paris, not by a friend, I dare say; and, to judge by them, I humbly conceive his excellency is a puppy. I will say nothing of that excellent headpiece that made him and unmade him in the same month, except O King, live for ever!"-E.

470 Letter 297 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Dec. 26th, 1758.

it is so little extraordinary to find you doing what is friendly and obliging, that one don't take half notice enough of it. Can't you let Mr. Conway go to Sluys without taking notice of it? How would you be hurt, if he continued to be oppressed? what is it to you whether I am glad or sorry? Can't you enjoy yourself whether I am happy or not'--'@ I suppose If I were to have a misfortune, you would immediately be concerned at it! How troublesome it is to have you sincere and good-natured! Do be a little more like the rest of the world.

I have been at Strawberry these three days, and don't know a tittle. The last thing I heard before I went was that Colonel Yorke is to be married to one or both of the Miss Crasteyns, nieces of the rich grocer that died three years ago. They have two hundred and sixty thousand pounds apiece. A marchioness-- or a grocer---nothing comes amiss to the digestion of that family.(991) If the rest of the trunk was filled with money, I believe they would really marry Carafattatouadaht--what was the lump of deformity called in the Persian Tales, that was sent to the lady in a coffer? And as to marrying both the girls, it would cost my Lord Hardwicke but a new marriage-bill: I suppose it is all one to his conscience whether he prohibits matrimony or licenses bigamy. Poor Sir Charles Williams is relapsed, and strictly confined.

As you come so late, I trust you will stay with us the longer. Adieu!

(991) Colonel Yorke, afterwards Lord Dover, married in 1783 the Dowager Baroness de Boetzalaer, widow of the first noble of the province of Holland.-E.

471 Letter 298 To The Rev. Henry Zouch. Strawberry Hill, Jan. 12, 1759.

Sir, I shall certainly be obliged to you for an account of that piece of Lord Lonsdale:(992) besides my own curiosity in any thing that relates to a work in which I have engaged so far, I think it a duty to the public to perfect, as far as one can, whatever one gives to it; and yet I do not think of another edition; two thousand have peen printed, and though nine hundred went off at once, it would be presumption in me to expect that the rest will be sold in any short time. I only mean to add occasionally to my private copy whatever more I can collect and correct; and shall perhaps, but leave behind me materials for a future edition, in which should be included what I have hitherto omitted. Yet it is very vain in me to expect that any body should care for such a trifle after the novelty is worn off; I ought to be content with the favourable reception I have found; so much beyond my first expectations, that, except in two Magazines, not a word of censure has passed on me in print. You may easily believe, Sir, that having escaped a trial, I am not mortified by having dirt thrown at me by children in the kennel. With regard to the story of Lord Suffolk, I wish I had been lucky enough to have mentioned it to you in time, it should not have appeared: yet it was told me by Mr. Mallet, who did not seem to have any objection that I should even mention his name as the very person to whom it happened. I must suppose that Lord Suffolk acted that foolish

## scene in imitation of Lord Rochester.(993)

I am happy, Sir, that I have both your approbation to my opinion of Lucan, and to my edition of him; but I assure you there will not be one word from me. I am sensible that it demands great attention to write even one's own language well: how can one pretend to purify a foreign language? to any merit in a dead one? I would not alone undertake to correct the press; but I am so lucky as to live in the strictest friendship with Dr. Bentley's Only Son, Who, to all the ornament of learning, has the amiable turn of mind, disposition, and easy wit. Perhaps you have heard that his drawings and architecture are admirable,--perhaps you have not: he is modest--he is poor- -he is consequently little known, less valued.

I am entirely ignorant of Dr. Burton and his Monasticon,(994) and after the little merit you tell me it has, I must explain to you that I have a collection of books of that sort, before I own that I wish to own it; at the same time, I must do so much justice to myself as to protest that I don't know so contemptible a class of writers as topographers, not from the study itself, but from their wretched execution. Often and often I have had an inclination to show how topography should be writ, by pointing out the curious particulars of places, with descriptions of principal houses, the pictures, portraits, and Curiosities they contain.

I scarce ever yet found any thing one wanted to know in one of those books; all they contain, except encomiums on the Stuarts and the monks, are lists of institutions and inductions, and inquiries how names of places were spelt before there was any spelling. If the Monasticon Eboracense is only to be had at York, I know Mr. Caesar Ward, and can get him to send it to me.

I will add but one short word: from every letter I receive from you, Sir, my opinion of you increases, and I much wish that so much good sense and knowledge were not thrown away only on me. I flatter myself that you are engaged, or will engage, in some work or pursuit that will make you better known. In the mean time, I hope that some opportunity will bring us personally acquainted, for I am, Sir, already most sincerely yours, Hor. Walpole.

P. S. You love to be troubled, and therefore I will make no apology for troubling you. Last summer, I bought of Vertue's widow forty volumes of his ms. corrections relating to English painters, sculptors, gravers, and architects. He had actually begun their lives: unluckily he had not gone far, and could not write grammar. I propose to digest and complete this work (I mean after the Conway Papers).(995) In the mean time, Sir, shall I beg the favour of you just to mark down memorandums of the pages where you happen to meet with any thing relative to these subjects, especially of our antienter buildings, paintings, and artists. I would not trouble you for more reference, if even that is not too much.

(992) Mr. Walpole did not insert any notice of Lord Lonsdale in his subsequent editions, though the omission has been remedied by Mr. Park. The piece to which Mr. Zouch probably alluded, the knowledge of which he may have derived from the noble family of Lowther, was " a "Treatise on Economies" addressed to his son, by Sir John Lowther, created Baron Lonsdale in 1696. This treatise was never published.-C.

(993) The story here alluded to is told, in the Noble Authors, of Edward Howard, eighth Earl of Suffolk. But Mr. Zouch had probably apprised Mr. Walpole, that a similar story had been told of Lord Rochester. The Earl is represented as having sent for " a gentleman well known in the literary world," (Mallet,) upon whom he inflicted the hearing of some of his verses; but coming to the description of a beautiful woman, he suddenly stopped, and said, "Sir, I am not like most poets; I do not draw from ideal mistresses; I always have my subject before me;" and ringing the bell, be said to a footman, "Call up Fine Eyes." A woman of the town appeared--"Fine Eyes," said the Earl, "look full on this gentleman." She did, and retired. Two or three others of the seraglio were summoned in their turns, and displayed their respective charms for which they had been distinguished by his lordship's pencil.-C.

(994) Dr. John Burton was a physician and antiquary of Yorkshire, who died in 1771. His principal work, here alluded to, is entitled "Monasticon Eboracense." This work was never completed, the first volume only having appeared in folio. Some imputations on the Doctor's loyalty in 1745, diminished, it is said, his means and materials for continuing the Work.-C.

(995) The two first volumes appeared from the press at Strawberry Hill in 1762.-C.

473 Letter 299 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Arlington Street, Jan. 19, 1759.

I hope the treaty of Sluys advances rapidly.(996) Considering that your own court is as new to you as Monsieur de Bareil and his, you cannot be very well entertained: the joys of a Dutch fishing town and the incidents of a cartel will not compose a very agreeable history. In the mean time you do not lose much: though the Parliament is met, no politics are come to town: one may describe the House of Commons like the price of stocks; Debates, nothing done. Votes, under par. Patriots, no price. Oratory, books shut. Love and war are as much at a stand; neither the Duchess of Hamilton nor the expeditions are gone off yet. Prince Edward has asked to go to Quebec, and has been refused. If I was sure they would refuse me, I would ask to go thither too. I should not dislike about as much laurel as I could stick in my window at Christmas.

We are next week to have a serenata at the Opera-house for the King of Prussia's birthday: it is to begin, "Viva Georgio, e Federico viva!" It will, I own, divert me to see my Lord Temple whispering for this alliance, on the same bench on which I have so often seen him whisper against all Germany. The new opera pleases universally, and I hope will yet hold up its head. Since Vanneschi is cunning enough to make us sing the roast Beef of old Germany, I am persuaded it will revive: politics are the only lhotbed for keeping such a tender plant as Italian music alive in England.

You are so thoughtless about your dress, that I cannot help giving you a little warning against your return. Remember, every body that comes from abroad is cens`e to come from France, and whatever they wear at their first reappearance immediately grows the fashion. Now if, as is very likely, you should through inadvertence change hats with a master of a Dutch smack, Offley will be upon the watch, will conclude you took your pattern from M. de Bareil, and in a week's time we shall all be equipped like Dutch skippers. You see I speak very disinterestedly; for, as I never wear a hat myself, it is indifferent to me what sort of hat I don't wear. Adieu! I hope nothing in this letter, if it is opened, will affect the conferences, nor hasten our rupture with Holland. Lest it should, I send it to Lord Holderness's office; concluding, like Lady Betty Waldegrave, that the government never suspect what they send under their own covers.

(996) Mr. Conway was sent to Sluys to settle a cartel for prisoners with the French. M. de Bareil was the person appointed by the French court for the same business.

473 Letter 300 The Hon. H. S. Conway. Arlington Street, Jan. 28, 1759.

You and M. de Bareil may give yourselves what airs you please of settling cartels with expedition: you don't exchange prisoners with half so much alacrity as Jack Campbell(997) and the Duchess of Hanillton have exchanged hearts. I had so little observed the negotiation, Or suspected any, that when your brother told me of it yesterday morning, I would not believe a tittle--I beg Mr. Pitt's pardon, not an iota. It is the prettiest match in the world since yours, and every body likes it but the Duke of Bridgewater and Lord Coventry. What an extraordinary fate is attached to those two women! Who could have believed that a Gunning would unite the two great houses of Campbell and Hamilton? For my part, I expect to see my Lady Coventry Queen of Prussia. I would not venture to marry either of them these thirty years, for fear of being shuffled out of the world prematurely, to make room for the rest of their adventures. The first time Jack carries the Duchess into the Highlands, I am persuaded that some of his second-sighted subjects will see him in a winding-sheet, with a train of kings behind him as long as those in Macbeth.

We had a scrap of a debate on Friday, on the Prussian and Hessian treaties. Old Vyner opposed the first, in pity to that poor woman, as he called her, the Empress-Queen.(998) Lord Strange objected to the gratuity of sixty thousand pounds to the Landgrave, unless words were inserted to express his receiving that Sum in full of all demands. If Hume Campbell had cavilled at this favourite treaty, Mr. Pitt could scarce have treated him with more haughtiness; and, what is far more extraordinary, Hume Campbell could scarce have taken it more dutifully. This long day was over by half an hour after four.

As you and M. de Bareil are on such amicable terms, you will take care to soften to him a new conquest we have made. Keppel has taken the island of Goree. You great ministers know enough Of its importance: I need not detail it. Before your letters came we had heard of the death of the Princess Royal:(999) you will find us black and all black. Lady Northumberland and the great ladies put off their assemblies: diversions begin again to-morrow with the mourning.

You perceive London cannot furnish half so long a letter as the little town of Sluys; at least I have not the art of making one out. In truth, I believe I should not have writ this unless Lady Ailesbury had bid me; but she does not care how much trouble it gives me, provided it amuses you for a moment. Good night!

P. S. I forgot to tell you that the King has granted my Lord Marischall's pardon, at the request of M. de Knyphausen.(1000) I believe the Pretender himself could get his attainder reversed if he would apply to the King of Prussia.

(997) Afterwards Duke of Argyle.

(998) "There never was so quiet or so silent a session of Parliament as the present: Mr. Pitt declares only what he would have them do, and they do it, nemine contradicente, Mr. Vyner only excepted." Lord Chesterfield.-E.

(999) The Princess of Orange died on the 12th of January.-E.

(1000) By a letter from Sir Andrew Mitchell, of the 8th of January, in the Chatham correspondence, it will be seen that the Lord of Marischal's pardon was granted at the earnest request of the King of Prussia, who said he " should consider it as a personal favour done to himself." The Earl Marischal was attainted for his share in the rebellion of 1715.-E.

475 Letter 301 To John Chute, Esq.(1001) Arlington Street, Feb. 1, 1759.

Well! my dear Sir, I am now convinced that both Mr. Keate's panic and mine were ill-founded; but pray, another time, don't let him be afraid of being afraid for fear of frightening me: on the contrary, if you will dip your gout in lemonade, I hope I shall be told of it. If you have not had it in Your stomach, it is not your fault: drink brandy, and be thankful. I would desire you to come to town, but I must rather desire you not to have a house to come to. Mrs. H. Grenville is passionately enamoured of yours, and begged I would ask you what will be the lowest price, with all the particulars, which I assured her you had stated very ill for yourself. I don't quite like this commission; if you part with your house in town, you will never come hither; at least, stow your cellars with drams and gunpowder as full as Guy Fawkcs's-you will be drowned if you don't blow yourself up. I don't believe that the Vine is within the verge of the rainbow: seriously, it is too damp for you. Colonel Campbell marries the Duchess of Hamilton forthwith. the house of Argyle is CONTENT, and think that the head of the Hamilton's had purified the blood of Gunning; but I should be afraid that his grace was more likely to corrupt blood than to mend it.

Never was any thing so crowded as the house last night for the Prussian cantata; the King was hoarse, and could not go to Sing his own praises. The dancers seemed transplanted from Sadler's Wells; there were milkmaids riding on dolphins; Britain and Prussia kicked the King of France off the stage, and there was a petit-maitre with his handkerchief full of holes; but this vulgarism happily was hissed.

I am deeper than ever in Gothic antiquities: I have bought a monk of Glastonbury's chair, full of scraps of the Psalms; and some seals of most reverend illegibility. I pass all my mornings in the thirteenth century, and my evenings with the century that is coming on. Adieu!

(1001) Now first printed.

475 Letter 302 To John Chute, Esq.(1002) Arlington Street, Feb. 2, 1759.

My dear sir, I am glad to see your writing again, and can now laugh very cordially at my own fright, which you take a great deal too kindly. I was not quite sure you would like my proceedings, but just then I could not help it, and perhaps my natural earnestness had more merit than my friendship; and yet it is worth my while to save a friend if I think I can--I have not so many! You yourself are in a manner lost to me! I must not, cannot repine at your having a fortune that delivers you from uneasy connexions with a world that is sure to use ill those that have any dependence on it; but undoubtedly some of the satisfaction that you have acquired is taken out of my scale; I will not, however, moralize, though I am in a very proper humour for it, being just come home from an outrageous crowd at Northumberland-house, where there were five hundred people, that would have been equally content or discontent with any other five hundred. This is pleasure! You invite so many people to your house, that you are forced to have constables at your door to keep the peace; just as the royal family, when they hunted, used to be attended by surgeons. I allow honour and danger to keep company with one another, but diversion and breaking one's neck are strangely ill-matched. Mr. Spence's Magliabechi(1003) is published to-day from Strawberry; I believe you saw it, and shall have it; but 'tis not worth sending you on purpose. However, it is full good enough for the generality of readers. At least there is a proper dignity in my saying so, who have been so much abused in all the magazines lately for my Catalogue. The points in dispute lie in a very narrow compass: they think I don't understand English, and I am sure they don't: yet they will not be convinced, for I shall certainly not take the pains to set them right. Who them are I don't know; the highest, I believe, are Dr. Smollet, or some chaplain of my uncle.

Adieu! I was very silly to alarm you so; but the wisest of' us, from Solomon to old Carr's cousin, are poor souls! May be you don't know any thing of Carr's cousin. Why then, Carr's cousin was--I don't know who; but Carr was very ill, and had a cousin, as I may be, to sit up with her. Carr had not slept for many nights--at last she dozed--her cousin jogged her: "Cousin, cousin!"--"Well!" said Carr, "what would you have?"--"Only, cousin, if you die where will you be buried?" This resemblance mortifies me ten times more than a thousand reviews could do: there is nothing in being abused by Carr's cousin, but it is horrid to be like Carr's cousin Good night!

(1002) Ibid.

(1003) Mr. Spence's Parallel of Magliabechi and Hill.-E.

476 Letter 303 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Feb. 9, 1759.

The Dutch have not declared war and interrupted our correspondence, and yet it seems ceased as if we had declared war with one another. I have not heard from you this age--how happens it? I have not seized any ships of yours--you carry on no counterband trade--oh! perhaps you are gone incognito to Turin, are determined to have a King of Prussia of your own! I expect to hear that the King of Sardinia, accompanied by Sir Horace Mann, the British minister, suddenly appeared before Parma at the head of an hundred thousand men, that had been privately landed at Leghorn. I beg, as Harlequin did when he had a house to sell, that you will send me a brick, as a sample of the first town you take-the Strawberry-press shall be preparing a congratulatory ode.

The Princess Royal has been dead some time: and yet the Dutch and we continue in amity, and put on our weepers together. In the mean time our warlike eggs have been some time under the hen, and one has hatched and produced Gor`ee. The expedition, called to Quebec, departs on Tuesday next, under Wolfe, and George Townshend, who has thrust himself again into the service, and as far as wrongheadedness will go, very proper for a hero. Wolfe, who was no friend of Mr. Conway last year, and for whom I consequently have no affection, has great merit, spirit, and alacrity, and shone extremely at Louisbourg. I am not such a Juno but I will forgive him after eleven more labours.(1004) Prince Edward asked to go with them, but was refused. It is clever in him to wish to distinguish himself; I, who have no partiality to royal blood, like his good-nature and good-breeding.

Except the horrid Portuguese histories, that between Jesuits(1005) and executions make one's blood run hot and cold, we have no news. The Parliament has taken a quieting-draught. Of private story, the Duchess of Hamilton is going to marry Colonel Campbell, Lady Ailesbury's brother. It is a match that would not disgrace Arcadia. Her beauty has made sufficient noise, and in some people's eyes is even improved--he has a most pleasing countenance, person, and manner, and if they could but carry to Scotland some of our sultry English weather, they might restore the ancient pastoral life, when fair Kings and queens reigned at once over their subjects and their sheep. Besides, exactly like antediluvian lovers, they reconcile contending clans, the great houses of Hamilton and Campbell-and all this is brought about by a GUnning! I talked of our sultry weather, and this is no air. While Italy, I suppose, is buried in snow, we are extinguishing fires, and panting for breath. In short, we have had a wonderful winter--beyond an earthquake winter-we shall soon be astonished at frost, like an Indian. Shrubs and flowers and blossoms are all in their pride; I am not sure that in some counties the corn is not cut.

I long to hear from you; I think I never was so long without a letter. I hope it is from no bad reason. Adieu!

(1004) Speaking of Wolfe in his Memoires, Walpole says, "Ambition, industry, passion for the service, were conspicuous in him. He seemed to breathe for nothing but fame, and lost no moments in qualifying himself to compass that object. Presumption on himself was necessary for his object, and he had it. He was formed to execute the designs of such a master as Pitt."-E.

(1005) The strange and mysterious conspiracy against the life of the King of Portugal, which was attempted as he was going, one night through the streets of Lisbon in his coach. many Jesuits were put to death for it, and also several of the noble families of the Dukes d'Aveiro, and Marquises of Tavora.-D. [See ant`e, p. 456, letter 289.]

478 Letter 304 To Mr. Gray. Arlington Street, Feb. 15, 1759

The enclosed, which I have this minute received from Mr. Bentley, explains much that I had to say to you-yet I have a question or two more.

Who and what sort of a man is a Mr. Sharp of Benet? I have received a most obliging and genteel letter from him, with the very letter of Edward VI. which you was so good as to send me. I answered his, but should like to know a little more about him. Pray thank the Dean of Lincoln too for me: I am much obliged to him for his offer, but had rather draw upon his Lincolnship than his Cambridgehood.(1006) In the library of the former are some original letters of Tiptoft, as you will find in my Catalogue. When Dr. Greene is there, I shall be glad if he will let me have them copied.

I will thank you if you will look in some provincial history of Ireland for Odo (Hugh) Oneil, King of Ulster. When did he live? I have got a most curious seal of his, and know no more of him than of Ouacraw King of the Pawwaws.

I wanted to ask you, whether you, or anybody that you believe in, believe in the Queen of Scots' letter to Queen Elizabeth.(1007) If it is genuine, I don't wonder she cut her head off--but I think it must be some forgery that was not made use of.

Now to my distress. You must have seen an advertisement perhaps the book itself, the villanous book itself, that has been published to defend me against the Critical Review.(1008) I have been childishly unhappy about it, and had drawn up a protestation or affidavit of my knowing nothing of it; but my friends would not let me publish it. I sent to the printer, who would not discover the author--nor could I guess. They tell me nobody can suspect my being privy to It but there is an intimacy affected that I think will deceive many--and yet I must be the most arrogant fool living, if I could know and suffer any body to speak of me in that style. For God's sake do all you can for me, and publish my abhorrence. To-day I am told that it Is that puppy Dr. Hill, who has chosen to make war with the magazines through my sides. I could pardon him any abuse, but I never can forgive this friendship. Adieu!

(1006 He was master of Benet College, Cambridge.

(1007) See Murden's State Papers, p. 558, for this curious letter.

(1008) It was called "Observations on the account given of the Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors of England, etc. etc. in article v'- of the Critical review, No. xxv. December, 1758, where the unwarrantable liberties taken with that work, and the honourable author of it, are examined and exposed."

479 Letter 305 To The Right Hon. Lady hervey. Feb. 20, 1759.

I met with this little book t'other day by chance, and it pleased me so much that I cannot help lending it to your ladyship, as I know it will amuse you from the same causes. It contains many of those important truths which history is too proud to tell, and too dull from not telling.

Here Grignon's soul the living canvass warms: Here fair Fontagno assumes unfading charms: Here Mignard's pencil bows to female wit; Louis rewards, but ratifies Fayette: The philosophic duke, and painter too, Thought from her thoughts--from her ideas drew.

479 Letter 306 To Sir David Dalrymple.(1009) Strawberry Hill, Feb. 25, 1759.

I think, sir, I have perceived enough of the amiable benignity of your mind, to be sure that you will like to hear the praises of your friend. Indeed, there is but one opinion about Mr. Robertson's history.(1010) I don't remember any other work that ever met universal approbation. Since the Romans and the Greeks, who have now an exclusive charter for being the best writers in every kind, he is the historian that pleases me best; and though what he has been so indulgent as to say of me ought to shut my mouth, I own I have been unmeasured in my commendations. I have forfeited my own modesty rather than not do justice to him. I did send him my opinion some time ago, and hope he received it. I can add, with the strictest truth, that he is regarded here as one of the greatest men that this island has produced. I say island, but you know, Sir, that I am disposed to say Scotland. I have discovered another very agreeable writer among your countrymen, and in a profession where I did not look for an author; It is Mr. Ramsay,(1011) the painter, whose pieces being anonymous have been overlooked. He has a great deal of genuine wit, and a very just manner of reasoning. In his own walk he has great merit. He and Mr. Reynolds are our favourite painters, and two of the very best we ever had. Indeed, the number of good has been very small, considering the numbers there are. A very few years ago there were computed two thousand portrait painters in London; I do not exaggerate the computation, but diminish; though I think it must have been exaggerated. Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Ramsay can scarce be rivals; their manners are so different. The former is bold, and has a kind of tempestuous colouring, yet with dignity and grace; the latter is all delicacy. Mr. Reynolds seldom succeeds in women; Mr. Ramsay is formed to paint them.

I fear I neglected, Sir, to thank you for your present of the history of the conspiracy of the Gowries: but I shall never forget all the obligations I have to you. I don't doubt but in Scotland you approve what is liked here almost as much as Mr. Robertson's history; I mean the marriage of Colonel Campbell and the Duchess of Hamilton. If her fortune is singular, so is her merit. Such uncommon noise as her beauty made has not at all impaired the modesty of her behaviour. Adieu!

(1009) Now first collected.

(1010) Dr. Robertson's "History of Scotland during the Reigns of Mary and James the Sixth," was published in the beginning of this month.-E.

(1011) Alan Ramsay, the eminent portrait-painter, and eldest son of the poet; on whose death, in 1757, in somewhat embarrassed circumstances, he paid his debts. He was an excellent classical scholar, understood French and Italian, and had all the polish and liberal feeling of a highly instructed man. In Bouquet's pamphlet on "The Present State of the Fine Arts in England," published in 1755, he is described as "an able painter, who, acknowledging no other guide than nature, brought a rational taste of resemblance with him from Italy." He died in 1784.-E.

480 Letter 307 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, March 1, 1759.

I know you are ministerial enough, or patriot enough, (two words that it is as much the fashion to couple now as it was formerly to part them,) to rejoice over the least bit of a conquest, and therefore I hurry to send you a morsel of Martinico, which you may lay under your head, and dream of having taken the whole island. As dreams often go by contraries, you must not be surprised if you wake and find we have been beaten back; but at this present moment, we are all dreaming of victory. A frigate has been taken going to France with an account that our troops landed on the island on the 16th of January, without opposition. A seventy-gun ship was dismissed at the same time, which is thought a symptom of their not meaning to resist. It certainly is not Mr. Pitt's fault if we have not great success; and if we have, it is certainly owing to him. The French talk of invading us; I hope they will not come quite so near either to victory or defeat, as to land on our Martinico! But you are going to have a war of your own. Pray send me all your gazettes extraordinary. I wish the King of Sardinia's heroism may not be grown a little rusty. Time was when he was the only King in Europe that had fought in his waistcoat; but now the King of Prussia has almost made it part of their coronation oath. Apropos, pray remember that the Emperor's pavilion is not the Emperor's pavillon; though you are so far in the right, that he may have a pavilion, but I don't conceive how he comes by a pavillon. What Tuscan colours has he, unless a streamer upon the belfry at Leghorn? You was so deep in politics when you wrote your last letter, that it was almost in cipher, and as I don't happen to have a key to bad writing, I could not read a word that interests my vanity extremely-I unravelled enough to learn that a new governor(1012) of Milan is a great admirer of me, but I could not guess at one syllable of his name, and it is very uncomfortable in a dialogue between one's pride and oneself, to be forced to talk of Governor What-d'ye-call-em, who has so good a taste. I think you never can have a more important occasion for despatching a courier than to tell me Governor - -'s name. In the mean time, don't give him any more Strawberry editions; of some I print very few, they are all begged immediately, and then you will not have a complete set, as I wish you to have, notwithstanding all my partiality for the governor of Milan. Perhaps, upon the peace I may send him a set richly bound! I am a little more serious in what I am going to say; you will oblige me if at your leisure you will pick up for me all or any little historical tracts that relate to the house of Medici. I have some distant thoughts of writing their history, and at the peace may probably execute what you know I have long retained in my wish, another journey to Florence. Stosch, I think, had great collections relating to them; would they sell a separate part of his library? Could I get at any state letters and papers there? Do think of this; I assure you I do Thank you for the trouble you have taken about the Neapolitan books, and for the medals that are coming.

Colonel Campbell and the Duchess of Hamilton are married. My sister(1013) who was at the Opera last Tuesday, and went from thence to a great ball at the Duke of Bridgewater's, where she stayed till three in the morning, was brought to bed in less than four hours afterwards of a fifth boy: she has had two girls, too, and I believe left it entirely to this child to choose what it would be. Adieu! my dear Sir.

(1012) Count Firmian, who understood English, and was fond of English authors. Sir Horace Mann had given him the Royal and Noble Authors.

(1013) Lady Mary Churchill, only daughter of Sir Robert Walpole by his second wife.

481 Letter 308 To John Chute, Esq.(1014) Arlington Street, March 13, 1759.

I am puzzled to know how to deal with you: I hate to be Officious, it has a horrid look; and to let you alone till you die at the Vine of mildew, goes against my conscience, Don't it go against yours to keep all your family there till they are mouldy? Instead of sending you a physician, I will send you a dozen brasiers; I am persuaded that you want to be dried and aired more than physicked. For God's sake don't stay there any longer:--

"Mater Cyrene, mater quae gurgitis hujus Ima tenes--"

send him away!--Nymphs and Jew doctors! I don't know what I shall pray to next against your obstinacy.

No more news yet from Guadaloupe! A persecution seems to be raising against General Hobson--I don't wonder! Wherever Commodore Moore is, one may expect treachery and blood. Good night!

(1014) Now first printed.

482 Letter 309 To The Rev. Henry Zouch. Arlington Street, March 15, 1759.

Sir, You judge very rightly, Sir, that I do not intend to meddle with accounts of religious houses; I should not think of them at all unless I could learn the names of any of the architects, not of the founders. It is the history of our architecture that I should search after, especially the beautiful Gothic. I have by no means digested the plan of my intended work. The materials I have ready in great quantities in Vertue's MSS.; but he has collected little with regard to our architects, except Inigo Jones. As our painters have been very indifferent, I must, to make the work interesting, make it historical; I would mix it with anecdotes of patrons of the arts, and with dresses and customs from old pictures. something in the manner of Moulfaucon's Antiquities of France. I think it capable of being made a very amusing work, but I don't know whether I shall ever bestow the necessary time on it. At present, even my press is at a stop, my printer, who was a foolish Irishman, and who took himself for a genius, and who grew angry when I thought him extremely the former, and not the least of the latter, has left me, and I have Not yet fixed upon another.

In what edition, Sir, of Beaumont and Fletcher, is the copy of verses you mention, signed "Grandison?"(1015) They are not in mine. In my Catalogue I mention the Countess of Montgomery's Eusebia; I shall be glad to know what her Urania is. I fear you will find little satisfaction in a library of noble works. I have got several, some duplicates, that shall be at your service if you continue Your collection; but in general they are mere curiosities.

Mr. Hume has published his History of the House of Tudor. I have not advanced far in it, but it appears an inaccurate and careless, as it certainly has been a very hasty, performance. Adieu! Sir.

(1015) There has been some mistake here. Amidst the vast number of verses to Beaumont and Fletcher, none are found with this signature. There is one copy signed Gardiner.-C.

482 Letter 310 To Sir David Dalrymple.(1016) Strawberry Hill, March 25, 1759.

I should not trouble you, Sir, so soon again with a letter, but some questions and some passages in yours seem to make it necessary. I know nothing of the Life of Gustavus, nor heard of it, before it was advertised. Mr. Harte(1017) was a favoured disciple of Mr. Pope, whose obscurity he imitated more than his lustre. Of the History of the Revival of Learning I have not heard a word. Mr. Gray a few years ago began a poem on that subject; but dropped it, thinking it would cross too much upon some parts of the Dunciad. It would make a signal part of a History of Learning which I lately proposed to Mr. Robertson. Since I wrote to him, another subject has started to me, which would make as agreeable a work, both to the writer and to the reader, as any I could think of; and would be a very tractable one, because capable of being extended or contracted as the author should please. It is the History of the House of Medici.(1018) There is an almost unknown republic, factions, banishment, murders, commerce, conquests, heroes, cardinals, all of a new stamp, and very different from what appear in any other country. There is a scene of little polite Italian courts, where gallantry and literature were uncommonly blended,

## particularly in that of Urbino, which without any violence

might make an episode. The Popes on the greater plan enter of course. What a morsel Leo the Tenth! the revival of letters!(1019) the torrent of Greeks that imported them! Extend still farther, there are Catherine and Mary, Queens of France. In short, I know nothing one could wish in a subject that would not fall into this--and then it is a Complete Subject, the family is extinct: even the state is so, as a separate dominion.

I could not help smiling, Sir, at being taxed with insincerity for my encomiums on Scotland. They were given in a manner a little too serious to admit of irony, and (as partialities cannot be supposed entirely ceased) with too much risk of disapprobation in this part of the world, not to flow from my heart. My friends have long known my opinion on this point, and it is too much formed on fact for me to retract it, if I were so disposed. With regard to the magazines and reviews, I can say with equal and great truth, that I have been much more hurt at a gross defence of me than by all that railing.

Mallet still defers his life of the Duke of Marlborough;(1020) I don't know why: sometimes he says he will stay till the peace; sometimes that he is translating it, or having it translated into French, that he may not lose that advantage.

(1016) Now first collected.

(1017) Walter Harte was tutor to Mr. Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield's natural son, and through bis lordship's interest made canon of Windsor. Dr. Johnson describes him as a scholar, and a man of the most companionable talents he had ever known." "Poor man!" he adds, "he left London the day of the publication of his book, that he might be out of the way of the great praise he was to receive; and he was ashamed to return, when he found how ill his book had succeeded. It was unlucky in coming out on the same day with Robertson's History of Scotland." See Boswell, vol. viii. p. 53. Lord Chesterfield writes to his son, on the 30th of March, "Harte's work will, upon the whole, be a very curious and valuable history. You will find it dedicated to one of your acquaintance, who was forced to prune the luxuriant praises bestowed upon him, and yet has left enough of all conscience to satisfy a reasonable man."-E.

(1018) It was afterwards written in five volumes in quarto, from authentic documents furnished by the Great-Duke himself. It was published in Florence in 1781, and was entitled "Istoria del Gran Ducato di Toscana sotto il Governo delta Casa Medici, per Riguccio Galuzzi."-E.

(1019) Mr. Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo do' Medici appeared in 1796, and his Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth in 1805.-E.

(1020) See vol. i. p. 393, letter 151.

484 Letter 311 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, April 11, 1759.

I have waited and waited, in hopes of sending you the rest of Martinico or Guadaloupe; nothing else, as you guessed, has happened, or I should -have told you. But at present I can stay no longer, for I, who am a little more expeditious than a squadron, have made a conquest myself, and in less than a month since the first thought started. I hurry to tell you, lest you should go and consult the map of Middlesex, to see -whether I have any dispute about boundaries with the neighbouring Prince of Isleworth, or am likely to have fitted out a secret expedition upon Hounslow Heath--in short, I have married, that is, am marrying, my niece Maria,(1021) my brother's second daughter, to Lord Waldegrave.(1022) What say you? A month ago I was told he liked her.--does he? I jumbled them together, and he has Already proposed. For character and credit, he is the first match in England-for beauty, I think she is. She has not a fault in her face and person, and the detail is charming. A warm complexion tending to brown, fine eyes, brown hair, fine teeth, and infinite wit and vivacity. Two things are odd in this match; he seems to have been doomed to a Maria Walpole--if his father had lived, he had married my sister;(1023) and this is the second of my brother's daughters that has married into the house of Stuart. Mr. Keppel(1024) comes from Charles, Lord Waldegrave from James II. My brother has luckily been tractable, and left the whole management to me. My family don't lose any rank or advantage, when they let me dispose of them--a knight of the garter for my niece; 150,000 pounds for my Lord Orford if he would have taken her;(1025) these are not trifling establishments.

It were miserable after this to tell you that Prince Ferdinand has cut to pieces two or three squadrons of Austrians. I frame to myself that if I was commander-in-chief. I should on a sudden appear in the middle of Vienna, and oblige the Empress to give an Archduchess with half a dozen provinces to some infant prince or other, and make a peace before the bread wagons were come up. Difficulties are nothing; all depends on the sphere in which one is placed.

You must excuse my altitudes I feel myself very impertinent just now, but as I know it, I trust I shall not be more so than is becoming.

The Dutch cloud is a little dispersed; the privy council have squeezed out some rays of sunshine by restoring One Of' their ships, and by adjudging that we captors should prove the affirmative of contraband goods, instead of the goods proving themselves so: just as if one was ordered to believe that if a blackamoor is christened Thomas, he is a white. These distinctions are not quite adapted to the meridian of a flippant English privateer's comprehensions: however, the murmur is not great yet. I don't know what may betide if the minister should order the mob to be angry with the Ministry, nor whether Mr. Pitt or the mob will speak first. He is laid up with the gout, and it is as much as the rest of the administration can do to prevent his flying out. I am sorry, after you have been laying in such bales of Grotius and Puffendorf, that you must be forced to correct the text by a Dutch comment. You shall have the pamphlet you desire, and Lord Mansfield's famous answer to the Prussian manifesto, (I don't know whether it is in French,) but you must now read Hardwickius usum Batavorum.(1026)

We think we have lost Fort St. David, but have some scanty hopes of a victorious codicil, as our fleet there seems to have had the superiority. The King of Spain is certainly not dead, and the Italian war in appearance is blown over. This summer, I think, must finish all war, for who will have men, who will have money to furnish another campaign? Adieu!

P. S. Mr. Conway has got the first regiment of dragoons on Hawley's death.

(1021) Maria, second daughter of Sir Edward Walpole, afterwards married to William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, brother of King George III.

(1022) James, second Earl of Waldegrave, knight of the garter, and governor of George Prince of Wales, afterwards George III.

(1023) Lady Maria Churchill, daughter of Sir Robert Walpole.

(1024) Frederick Keppel, fourth son of William Anne, Earl of Albemarle, by Lady Anne Lennox, daughter of the first Duke of Richmond.

(1025) Miss Nichols, afterwards Marchioness of Carnarvon.

(1026) Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke.

485 Letter 312 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, April 26, 1759.

Your brother, your Wetenhalls, and the ancient Baron and Baroness Dacre of the South, are to dine with me at Strawberry Hill next Sunday. Divers have been the negotiations about it: your sister, you know, is often impeded by a prescription or a prayer; and I, on the other hand, who never rise in the morning, have two balls on my hands this week to keep me in bed the next day till dinner-time. Well, it is charming to be so young! the follies of the town are so much more agreeable than the wisdom of my brethren the authors, that I think for the future I shall never write beyond a card, nor print beyond Mrs. Clive's benefit tickets. Our great match approaches; I dine at Lord Waldegrave's presently, and suppose I shall then hear the day. I have quite reconciled my Lady Townshend to the match (saving her abusing us all), by desiring her to choose my wedding clothes; but I am to pay the additional price of being ridiculous. to which I submit; she has chosen me a white ground with green flowers. I represented that, however young my spirits may be, my bloom is rather past; but the moment I declared against juvenile colours, I found it was determined I should have nothing else: so be it. T'other night I had an uncomfortable situation with the duchess of Bedford: we had played late at loo at Lady Joan Scot's; I came down stairs with their two graces of Bedford and Grafton: there was no chair for me: I said I will walk till I meet one. "Oh!" said the Duchess of Grafton, "the Duchess of Bedford will set you down:" there were we charmingly awkward and complimenting: however, she was forced to press it, and I to accept it; in a minute she spied a hackney chair--"Oh! there is a chair,-but I beg your pardon, it looks as if I wanted to get rid of you, but indeed I don't; only I am afraid the Duke will want his supper." You may imagine how much I was afraid of making him wait. The ball at Bedford-house, on Monday, was very numerous and magnificent. The two Princes were there, deep hazard, and the Dutch deputies, who are a proverb for their dulness: they have brought with them a young Dutchman, who is the richest man of Amsterdam. I am amazed Mr. Yorke has not married him! But the delightful part of the night was the appearance of the Duke of Newcastle, who is veering round again, as it is time to betray Mr. Pitt. The Duchess(1027) was at the very upper end of the gallery, and though some of the Pelham court were there too, yet they showed so little cordiality to this revival of connexion, that Newcastle had nobody to attend him but Sir Edward Montagu, who kept pushing him all up the gallery. From thence he went into the hazard-room, and wriggle(], and shuffled, and lisped, and winked, and spied, till he got behind the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Bedford, and Rigby; the first of whom did not deign to notice him; but he must come to it. You would have died to see Newcastle's pitiful and distressed figure,--nobody went near him: he tried to flatter people, that were too busy to mind him; in short, he was quite disconcerted; his treachery used to be so sheathed in folly, that he was never out of countenance; but it is plain he grows old. To finish his confusion and anxiety, George Selwyn, Brand, and I, went and stood near him, and in half whispers, that he might hear, said, "Lord, how he is broke! how old he looks!" then I said, "This room feels very cold: I believe there never is a fire in it." Presently afterwards I said, "Well, I'll not stay here; this room has been washed to-day." In short, I believe we made him take a double dose of Gascoign's powder when he went home. Next night Brand and I communicated this interview to Lord Temple, who was in agonies; and yesterday his chariot was seen in forty different parts of the town. I take it for granted that Fox will not resist these overtures, and then we shall have the paymastership, the secretaryship of Ireland, and all Calcraft's regiments once more afloat.

May 1.

I did not finish this letter last week, for the picture could not set out till next Thursday. Your kin brought Lord Mandeville with them to Strawberry; he was very civil and good-humoured, and I trust I was so too. My nuptialities dined here yesterday. The wedding is fixed for the 15th. The town, who saw Maria set out in the Earl's coach, concluded it was yesterday. He notified his marriage to the Monarch last Saturday, and it was received civilly. Mrs. Thornhill is dead, and I am inpatient to hear the fate of Miss Mildmay. the Princes Ferdinand and Henry have been skirmishing, have been beaten, and have beat, but with no decision.

The ball at Mr. Conolly's(1028) was by no means delightful. the house is small, it was hot, and was composed Of young Irish. I was retiring when they went to supper, but was fetched back to sup with Prince Edward and the Duchess of Richmond, who is his present passion. He had chattered as much love to her as would serve ten balls. The conversation turned on the Guardian--most unfortunately the Prince asked her if she should like Mr. Clackit--"No, indeed, Sir," said the Duchess. Lord Tavistock(1029) burst out into a loud laugh, and I am afraid none of the company quite kept their countenances. Adieu! This letter is gossiping enough for any Mrs. Clackit, but I know you love these details.

(1027) Gertrude Duchess of Bedford, daughter of Earl Gower.

(1028) Thomas Conolly, Esq., son of Lady Anne Conolly, sister of Thomas Earl of Strafford, and who inherited great part of her brother's property. Mr. Conolly was married to Lady Louisa Lenox, sister of the Duke of Richmond, and of Lady Holland. They died without issue.-E.

(1029) Francis Marquis of Tavistock, only son of John Duke of Bedford. He died before his father, in 1767, in consequence of a fall from his horse when hunting.-E.

487 Letter 313 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, May 10, 1759.

The laurels we began to plant in Guadaloupe do not thrive--we have taken half the island, and despair of the other half which we are gone to take. General Hobson is dead, and many of our men-it seems all climates are not equally good for conquest-Alexander and Caesar would have looked wretchedly after a yellow fever! A hero that would have leaped a rampart, would perhaps have shuddered at the thought of being scalped. Glory will be taken in its own way, and cannot reconcile itself to the untoward barbarism of America. In short, if we don't renounce expeditions, our history will be a journal of miscarriages. What luck must a general have that escapes a flux, or being shot abroad--or at home! How fatal a war has this been! From Pondicherry to Canada, from Russia to Senegal, the world has been a great bill of mortality? The King of Prussia does not appear to have tapped his campaign yet--he was slow last year; it is well if he concludes this as thunderingly as he did the last. Our winter-politics are drawn to the dregs. The King is gone to Kensington, and the Parliament is going out of town. The ministers who don't agree, will, I believe, let the war decide their squabbles too. Mr. Pitt will take Canada and the cabinet-council together, or miscarry in both. There are Dutch deputies here, who are likely to be here some time: their negotiations are not of an epigrammatic nature. and we are in no hurry to decide on points which we cannot well give up, nor maintain without inconvenience. But it is idle to describe what describes itself by not being concluded.

I have received yours of the 7th of last month, and fear you are quite in the right about a history of the house of Medici-- yet it is pity it should not be written!(1030) You don't, I know, want any spur to incite you to remember me and any commission with which I trouble you; and therefore you must not take it in that light, but as the consequence of my having just seen the Neapolitan book of Herculaneum, that I mention it to you again. Though it is far from being finely engraved, yet there are bits in It that make me wish much to have it, and if you could procure it for me, I own I should be pleased. Adieu! my dear Sir.

(1030) See ant`e, p. 483, letter 310.

488 Letter 314 To The Rev. Henry Zouch. Strawberry Hill, May 14, 1759.

Sir, You accuse me with so much delicacy and with so much seeming justice, that I must tell you the truth, cost me what it will. It is in fact, I own, that I have been silent, not knowing what to say to you, or how not to say something about your desire that I would attend the affair of the navigation of Calder in Parliament. In truth, I scarce ever do attend private business on solicitation. If I attend, I cannot help forming an opinion, and when formed I do not care not to be guided by it, and at the same time it is very unpleasant to vote against a person whom one went to serve. I know nothing of the merits of the navigation in question, and it would have given me great pain to have opposed, as it might have happened, a side espoused by one for whom I had conceived such an esteem as I have for you, Sir. I did not tell you my scruples, because you might have thought them affected, and because, to say the truth, I choose to disguise them. I have seen too much of the parade of conscience to expect that an ostentation of it in me should be treated with uncommon lenity. I cannot help having scruples; I can help displaying them; and now, sir, that I have made you my confessor, I trust you will keep my secret for my sake, and give me absolution for what I have committed against you.

I certainly do propose to digest the materials that Vertue had collected(1031) relating to English arts; but doubting of the merit of the subject, as you do, Sir, and not proposing to give myself much trouble about it, I think, at present, that I shall still call the work his. However, at your leisure, I shall be much obliged to you for any hints. For nobler or any other game, I don't think of it; I am sick of the character of author; I am sick of the consequences of it; I am weary Of Seeing my name in the newspapers; I am tired with reading foolish criticisms on me, and as foolish defences of me; and I trust my friends will be so good as to let the last abuse of me pass unanswered. It is called "Remarks" on my Catalogue, asperses the Revolution more than it does my book, and, in one word, is written by a non-juring preacher, who was a dog-doctor. Of me he knows so little, that he thinks to punish me by abusing King William! Had that Prince been an author, perhaps I might have been a little ungentle to him too. I am not dupe enough to think that any body wins a crown for the sake of the people. Indeed, I am Whig enough to be glad to be abused; that is, that any body may write what they please; and though the Jacobites are the only men who abuse outrageously that liberty of the press which all their labours tend to demolish, I would not have the nation lose such a blessing for their impertinences. That their spirit and projects revive is certain. All the histories of England, Hume's, as you observe, and Smollett's more avowedly, are calculated to whiten the house of Stuart. All the magazines are elected to depress writers of the other side, and as it has been learnt within these few days, France is preparing an army of commentators1032) to illustrate the works of those professors. But to come to what ought to be a particular part of this letter. I am very sensible, Sir, to the confidence you place in me, and shall assuredly do nothing to forfeit it; at the same time, I must take the liberty you allow me, of making some objections to your plan. As your friend, I must object to the subject. It is heroic to sacrifice one's own interest to do good, but I would be sure of doing some before I offered myself up. You will make enemies; are you sure you shall make proselytes? I am ready to believe you have no ambition now-- but may you not have hereafter? Are bishops corrigible or placable? Few men are capable of forgiving being told their faults in private; who can bear being told of them publicly?- -Then, you propose to write in Latin: that is, you propose to be read by those only whom you intend to censure, and whose interest it will be to find faults in your work. If I proposed to attack the clergy, I would at least call in the laity to hear my arguments, and I fear the laity do not much listen to Latin. In Short, Sir, I wish much to see something of your writing, and consequently I wish to see it in a shape in which it would give me most pleasure.

You will say, that your concealing your name is an answer to all I have said. A bad author may be concealed, but then what good does he do? I am persuaded you would write well-ask your heart, Sir, if you then would like to conceal yourself. Forgive my frankness; I am not old, but I have lived long enough to be sure that I give you good advice. There -is lately published a voluminous history of Gustavus Adolphus, sadly written, yet very amusing from the matter.

(1031) Mr. Walpole, in his dedication of the "Anecdotes of painting," says, he is rather an Editor than an Author; but much as he certainly derived from Vertue, his own share in this interesting work entitles him to the thanks of every lover of the fine arts, and of British antiquities.-C.

(1032) The French were at this time attempting to play the farce of invasion. Flat-bottomed boats were building in all the ports of Normandy and Brittany, calculated to transport an army of a hundred thousand men.-C.

489 Letter 315 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, May 16, 1759.

I packed up a long letter to you in the case with the Earl of Manchester, which I suppose did not arrive at Greatworth before you left it. Don't send for it, for there are private histories in it, that should not travel post, and which will be full as new to you a month hence.

Well! Maria was married yesterday. Don't we manage well! the original day was not once put off: lawyers and milliners were all ready canonically. It was as sensible a wedding as ever was. There was neither form nor indecency, both which generally meet on such occasions. They were married at my brother's in Pall-Mall, just before dinner, by Mr. Keppel; the company, my brother, his son, Mrs. Keppel, and Charlotte, Lady Elizabeth Keppel, Lady Betty Waldegrave, and I. We dined there; the Earl and new Countess got into their postchaise at eight o'clock, and went to Navestock alone, where they stay till Saturday night: on Sunday she is to be presented, and to make my Lady Coventry distracted, who, t'other day, told Lady Anne Connolly how she dreaded Lady Louisa's arrival; "But," said she, "now I have seen her, I am easy."

Maria was in a white silver gown, with a hat pulled very much over her face; what one could see of it was handsomer than ever; a cold maiden blush gave her the sweetest delicacy in the world. I had liked to have demolished the solemnity of the ceremony by laughing, when Mr. Keppel read the words, "Bless thy servant and thy handmaid;" it struck me how ridiculous it would have been, had Miss Drax been the handmaid, as she was once to have been.

Did I ever tell you what happened at my Lord Hertford's wedding? You remember that my father's style was not purity itself. As the bride was so young and so exceedingly bashful, and as my Lord Hertford is a little of the prude himself, great means were used to keep Sir Robert within bounds. He yawned, and behaved decently. When the dessert was removed, the Bishop, who married them, said, "Sir Robert, what health shall we drink?" It was just after Vernon's conquest of Porto Bello. "I don't know," replied my father: "why, drink the admiral in the straights of Bocca Cieca."

We have had a sort of debate in the House of Commons on the bill for fixing the augmentation of the salaries of the judges: Charles Townshend says, the book of Judges was saved by the book of Numbers.

Lord Weymouth(1033) is to be married on Tuesday, or, as he said himself, to be turned off. George Selwyn told him he wondered that he had not been turned off before, for he still sits up drinking all night and gaming.

Well! are you ready to be invaded? for it seems invasions from France are coming into fashion again. A descent on Ireland at least is expected. There has been a great quarrel -between Mr. Pitt and Lord Anson, on the negligence of the latter. I suppose they will be reconciled by agreeing to hang some admiral, who will come too late to save Ireland, after it is impossible to save it.

Dr. Young has published a new book,(1034) on purpose. he says himself, to have an opportunity of telling a story that he has known these forty years. Mr. Addison sent for the young Lord Warwick, as he was dying, to show him in what peace a Christian could die--unluckily he died of brandy-nothing makes a Christian die in peace like being maudlin! but don't say this in Gath, where you are. Adieu!

P. S. I forgot to tell you two good stories of the little Prince Frederick. He was describing to Lady Charlotte Edwin the eunuchs of the Opera; but not easily finding proper words, he said, "I can't tell you, but I will show you how they make them," and began to unbutton. T'other day as he was with the Prince of Wales, Kitty Fisher passed by, and the child named her; the Prince, to try him, asked who that was? "Why, a Miss." "A Miss," said the Prince of Wales; "why, are not all girls Misses?" "Oh! but a particular sort of Miss--a Miss that sells oranges." "Is there any harm in selling oranges?" "Oh! but they are not such oranges as you buy; I believe they are a sort that my brother Edward buys."

(1033) Afterwards created Marquis of Bath. He married Lady Elizabeth Cavendish Bentinck, daughter of William, third Duke of Portland.-E.

(1034) "Conjectures on Original Composition; in a letter to the author of Sir Charles Grandison." The article on this work in the Critical Review was written by Oliver Goldsmith. See the recent edition of his Miscellaneous Works, vol. iv. p. 462.-E.

491 Letter 316 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, June 1, 1759.

I have not announced to you in form the invasion from France, of which all our newspapers have been so full, nor do I tell you every time the clock strikes. An invasion frightens one but once. I am grown to fear no invasions but those we make. Yet I believe there are people really afraid of this--I mean the new militia, who have received orders to march. The war in general seems languishing: Prince Henry of Prussia is the only one who keeps it up with any spirit. The Parliament goes into the country to-morrow.

One of your last friends, Lord Northampton,(1035) is going to marry Lady Anne Somerset, the Duke of Beaufort's sister. She is rather handsome. He seems to have too much of the coldness and dignity of the Comptons.

Have you had the comet in Italy? It has made more noise here than it deserved, because Sir Isaac Newton foretold it, and it came very near disappointing him. Indeed, I have a notion that it is not the right, but a little one- that they put up as they were hunting the true--in short, I suppose, like pine-apples and gold pheasants, comets will grow so common as to be sold at Covent-garden market.

I am glad you approve the marriage of my charming niece--she is now Lady Waldegrave in all the forms.

I envy you who can make out whole letters to me--I find it grow every day more difficult, we are so far and have been so long removed from little events in common that serve to fill up a correspondence, that though my heart is willing, my hand is slow. Europe is a dull magnificent subject to one who cares little and thinks still les about Europe. Even the King of Prussia, except on post-days don't occupy a quarter of an inch in my memory. He must kill a hundred thousand men once a fortnight to Put me in mind of him. Heroes that do so much in a book, and seem so active to posterity, lie fallow a vast while to their contemporaries--and how it would humble a vast Prince who expects to occupy the whole attention of an age, to hear an idle man in his easy chair cry "Well! why don't the King of Prussia do something?" If one means to make a lasting bustle, one should contrive to be the hero of a village; I have known a country rake talked of for a riot, whole years after the battle of Blenheim has grown obsolete. Fame, like an essence, the farther it is diffused, the sooner it vanishes. The million in London devour an event and demand another to-morrow. Three or four families in a hamlet twist and turn it, examine, discuss, mistake, repeat their mistake, remember their mistake, and teach it to their children. Adieu!

(1035) Charles Compton, seventh Earl of Northampton, married Lady Anne Somerset, daughter of Charles, fourth Duke of beaufort; by whom he had an only Child, Lady Elizabeth Compton, married to Lord George Henry Cavendish, now Earl of Burlington. Lord Northampton died in 1763.-D.

492 Letter 317 To George Montagu, Esq. June 2, 1759.

Strawberry Hill is grown a perfect Paphos; it is the land of beauties. On Wednesday the Duchesses of Hamilton and Richmond and Lady Ailesbury dined there; the two latter stayed all night. There never was so pretty a sight as to see them all three sitting in the shell; a thousand years hence, when I begin to grow old, if that can ever be, I shall talk of that event, and tell young people how much handsomer the women of my time were than they will be then: I shall say, "Women alter now; I remember Lady Ailesbury looking handsomer than her daughter, the pretty Duchess of Richmond, as they were sitting in the shell on my terrace with the Duchess of Hamilton, one of the famous Gunnings." Yesterday t'other more famous Gunning(1036) dined there. She has made a friendship with my charming niece, to disguise her jealousy of the new Countess's beauty: there were they two, their lords, Lord Buckingham, and Charlotte. You will think that I did not choose men for my

## parties so well as women. I don't include Lord Waldegrave in

this bad election.

Loo is mounted to its zenith; the parties last till one and two in the morning. We played at Lady Hertford's last week, the last night of her lying-in, till deep into Sunday morning, after she and her lord were retired. It Is now adjourned to Mrs. Fitzroy's, whose child the town called "Pam--ela'. I proposed, that instead of receiving cards for assemblies, one should send in a morning to Dr. Hunter's, the man-midwife, to know where there is loo that evening. I find poor Charles Montagu is dead:(1037) is it true, as the papers say, that his son comes into Parliament? The invasion is not half so much in fashion as loo, and the King demanding the assistance of' the militia does not add much dignity to it. The great Pam of Parliament, who made the motion, entered into a wonderful definition of the several sorts of fear; from fear that comes from pusillanimity, up to fear from magnanimity. It put me in mind of that wise Pythian, My Lady Londonderry, who, when her sister, Lady DOnnegal was dying, pronounced, that if it were a fever from a fever, she would live; but if it were a fever from death, she would die.

Mr. Mason has published another drama, called Caractacus; there are some incantations poetical enough, and odes so Greek as to have very little meaning. But the whole is laboured, uninteresting, and no more resembling the manners of Britons than of Japanese. It is introduced by a piping elegy; for Mason, in imitation of Gray, "will cry and roar all night"(1038) without the least provocation.

Adieu! I shall be glad to hear that your Strawberry tide is fixed.

(1036) Lady Coventry.

(1037) Only son of the Hon. James Montagu, son of Henry Earl of Manchester.-E.

(1038) An expression of Mr. Montagu's.

493 Letter 318 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, June 8, 1759.

This is merely a letter about your commission, and I hope it will get to you with wondrous haste. I have not lost a minute in trying to execute what you desire, but it is impossible to perform all that is required. A watch, perfect by Ellicot or Gray, with all the accompaniments, cannot possibly be had for near seventy-five pounds. Though the directions do not expressly limit me to seventy-five, yet I know Italians enough to be sure that when they name seventy-five, they would not bear a codicil of fifty-five more. Ellicot (and Gray is rather dearer) would have for watch and chain a hundred and thirty-four guineas; the seals will cost sixteen more. Two hundred and sixty-eight sequins are more than I dare lay out. But I will tell you what I have done: Deard, one of the first jewellers and toymen Here, has undertaken to make a watch and chain, enamelled according to a pattern I have chosen of the newest kind, for a hundred guineas; with two seals for sixteen more; and he has engaged that, if this is not approved, he will keep it himself; but to this I must have an immediate answer. He will put his own name to it, as a warrant to the goodness of the work; and then, except the nine of Ellicot or Gray, your friend will have as good a watch as he can desire. I take for granted, at farthest, that I can have an answer by the 15th of July; and then there will be time, I trust, to convey it to you; I suppose by sea, for unless a fortunate messenger should be going `a point nomm`e, you may imagine that a traveller would not arrive there in any time. My dear Sir, you know how happy I am to do any thing you desire; and I shall pique myself on your credit in this, but your friend has expected what, altogether, it is almost impossible to perform--what can be done, shall be.

There is not a syllable of news--if there was, I should not confine myself solely to the commission. Some of our captains in the East Indies have behaved very ill; if there is an invasion, which I don't believe there will, I am glad they were not here. Adieu!

494 Letter 319 To The Earl Of Strafford. Strawberry Hill, June 12, 1759.

My dear lord, After so kind a note as you left for me at your going Out Of town, you cannot wonder that I was determined to thank you the moment I knew you settled in Yorkshire. At least I am not ungrateful, if I deserve your goodness by no other title. I was willing to stay till I could amuse you, but I have not a battle big enough even to send in a letter. A war that reaches from Muscovy to Alsace, and from Madras to California, don't produce an article half so long as Mr. Johnson's riding three horses at Once. The King of Prussia's campaign is still. in its papillotes; Prince Ferdinand is laid up like the rest of the pensioners on Ireland; Guadaloupe has taken a sleeping- draught, and our heroes in America seem to be planting suckers of laurels that will not make any future these three years. All the war that is in fashion lies between those two ridiculous things, an invasion and the militia. - Prince Edward is going to sea, to inquire after the invasion from France: and the old potbellied country colonels are preparing to march and make it drunk when it comes. I don't know, as it is an event in Mr. Pitt's administration, whether the Jacobite corporations, who are converted by his eloquence which they never heard, do not propose to bestow their freedom on the first corps of French that shall land.

Adieu, my lord and my lady! I hope you are all beauty and verdure. We are drowned with obtaining ours.

495 Letter 320 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, June 22, 1759.

Well! they tell us in good earnest that we are to be invaded; Mr. Pitt is as positive of it as of his own invasions. As the French affect an air of grandeur in all they do, "Mr. Pitt sent ten thousands, but they send fifty thousands." You will be inquisitive after our force--I can't tell you the particulars; I am only in town for to-day, but I hear of mighty preparations. Of one thing I am sure; they missed the moment when eight thousand men might have carried off England and set it down in the gardens of Versailles. In the last war, when we could not rake together four thousand men, and were all divided, not a flat-bottomed boat lifted up its leg against us! There is great spirit in Motion; my Lord Orford is gone with his Norfolk militia to Portsmouth; every body is raising regiments or themselves--my Lord Shaftsbury,(1039) . one of the new colonels of militia, is to be a brigadier-general. I shall not march my Twickenham militia for some private reasons; my farmer has got an ague, my printer has run away, my footboy is always drunk, and my gardener is a Scotchman, and I believe would give intelligence to the enemy. France has notified the Dutch that she intends to -surprise us; and this makes us still more angry. In the mean time, we have got Guadaloupe to play with. I did not send you any particulars, for this time the Gazette piqued itself upon telling its own story from beginning to end; I never knew it so full of chat. It is very comfortable, that if we lose our own island, we shall at least have all America to settle in. Quebec is to be conquered by the 15th of July, and two more expeditions, I don't know whither, are to be crowned with all imaginable success, I don't know when; so you see our affairs, upon the whole, are in a very prosperous train. Your friend, Colonel Clavering, is the real hero of Guadaloupe; he is come home, covered "with more laurels than a boar's head: indeed he has done exceedingly well. A much older friend of yours is just dead, my Lady Murray;(1040) she caught her death by too strict attendance on her sister, Lady Binning, who has been ill. They were a family of love, and break their hearts for her. She had a thousand good qualities; but no mortal was ever so surprised as I when I was first told that she was the nymph Arthur Gray would have ravished. She had taken care to guard against any more such danger by more wrinkles than ever twisted round a human face. Adieu! If you have a mind to be fashionable, you must raise a regiment of Florentine militia.

(1039) Anthony Ashley Cooper, fourth Earl of Shaftsbury. he died in 1771.-D.

(1040) Daughter of George Bailie, Esq. See an epistle from Arthur Gray, her footman, to her, in the poems of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. [Lady Murray of Stanhope. She was a woman of merit and ability, and of excellent conduct. She was an intimate friend of Lady Hervey, who, in her letters, thus speaks of her;--"I have lost the first friend I had--the kindest, best, and most valuable one I ever had, with whom I have lived at her grandfather's, Lord Marchmont."-E.]

496 Letter 321 To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, June 23, 1759.

As you bid me fix a day about six weeks from the date of your last, it will suit me extremely to see you here the 1st of August. I don't mean to treat you with a rowing for a badge, but it will fall in very commodely between my parties. You tell me nothing of the old house you were to see near Blenheim: I have some suspicion that Greatworth is coming into play again. I made your speeches to Mr. Chute, and to Mr. M`untz, and to myself; your snuff-box is bespoke, your pictures not done, the print of Lady Waldegrave not begun.

news there are none, unless you have a mind for a panic about the invasion. I was in town yesterday, and saw a thousand people at Kensington with faces as long as if it was the last accession of this family that they were ever to See. The French are coming with fifty thousand men, and we shall meet them with fifty addresses. Pray, if you know how, frighten your neighbours, and give them courage at the same time.

My Lady Coventry and my niece Waldegrave have been mobbed in the Park. I am sorry the people of England take all their liberty out in insulting pretty women.

You will be diverted with what happened to Mr. Meynell lately. He was engaged to dine at a formal old lady's, but stayed so late hunting that he had not time to dress, but -went as he was, with forty apologies. The matron very affected, and meaning to say something very civil, cried, "Oh! Sir, I assure you I can see the gentleman through a pair of buckskin breeches as well as if he was in silk or satin."

I am sure I can't tell you any thing better, so good night! Yours ever.

P. s. I hope you have as gorgeous weather as we have; it is even hot enough for Mr. Bentley. I live upon the water.

497 Letter 322 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, July 8, 1759.

This will be the most indecisive of all letters: I don't write to tell you that the French are not landed at Deal, as was believed yesterday. An officer arrived post in the middle of the night, who saw them disembark. The King was called; my lord Ligonier buckled on his armour. Nothing else was talked of in the streets; yet there was no panic.(1041) Before noon, it was known that the invasion was a few Dutch hoys. The day before, it was triumph. Rodney was known to be before Havre de Grace; with two bomb-ketches he set the town on fire in different places, and had brought up four more to act, notwithstanding a very smart fire from the forts, which, however, will probably force him to retire without burning the flat-bottomed boats, which are believed out of his reach. The express came from him on Wednesday morning. This is Sunday noon, and I don't know that farther intelligence is arrived. I am sorry for this sort of war, not only for the sufferers, but I don't like the precedent, in case the French should land. I think they will scarce venture; for besides the force on land, we have a mighty chain of fleet and frigates along the coast. There is great animosity to them, and few can expect to return.

Our part of the war in Germany seems at an end: Prince Ferdinand is retiring, and has all the advantage of that part of great generalship, a retreat. From America we expect the greatest things; our force there by land and sea is vast. I hope we shall not be to buy England back by restoring the North Indies! I will gladly give them all the hundred thousand acres that may fall to my share on the Olio for my twenty acres here. Truly I don't like having them endangered for the limits of Virginia!

I wait impatiently for your last orders for the watch; if the worst comes to the worst, I can convey it to you by some French officer.

The weather is sultry; this country never looked prettier. I hope our enemies will not have the heart to spoil it! It would be much disappointment to me, who am going to make great additions to my castle; a gallery, a round tower, and a cabinet, that is to have all the air of a Catholic chapel--bar consecration. Adieu! I will tell you more soon, or I hope no more.

(1041) "Every body," says Gray, in a letter to Dr. Wharton, of the 21st, "continues as quiet about the invasion as if a Frenchman, as soon as he set his foot on our coast, would die, like a toad in Ireland. Yet the King's tents and equipage are ordered to be ready at an hour's warning." Works, vol. iii. p. 218.-E.

498 Letter 323 To Sir David Dalrymple.(1042) Strawberry Hill, July 11, 1759.

You will repent, Sir, I fear, having drawn such a correspondent upon yourself. An author flattered and encouraged is not easily shaken- off again; but if the interests of my